Elevate your Grapes! Toss Them in the Oven….

How can it be that summer is but a memory?? My fave season went by in a flash.  Zoom-gone.  The evenings are already beginning to chill. Fall is right.around.the.corner. 🙁

I am having flashbacks of my mother sitting at our kitchen table, wishing aloud that summer could linger.  As an adult, I still wonder how that was remotely possible given the torture we inflicted throughout the summer. We never sat still.  My brother was always finding things around the house with which he could conduct his science experiments. I was busily gathering my friends to coerce them to participate in the summer plays I would put together.  (We used my friend’s garage as the stage; her garage door as our curtain. Our measly profits went to a local charity.) My mother was incredibly patient as I recruited her to sew costumes or listen to lines over and over again.

Then there was the summer that I almost ran over my father with the car. The expression on my mother’s face is forever etched in my memory. You can read about that little episode here:  https://ouritaliantable.com/in-my-fathers-memory/

As much as I want summer to linger, it will not. At least, I can turn my attention to a new crop of nature’s bounty with which to appease my sadness. First up – grapes! I spotted some beautiful black grapes at the market this weekend. I had to scoop them up as they are not easy to find in these parts.

Now what to do with these little beauties?

Lets roast them! A few minutes in a hot oven turns these beauties into a juicy, jammy delicious pile of goodness – turns them from simple to sublime with very little effort.

And so many options once they are roasted (if you can stop yourself from eating them all fresh from the oven.)

• Try topping your ricotta-slathered crostini with a few fresh grapes and more thyme.
• Serve them straight out of the oven, warm alongside that cheese on the antipasto platter. Add a bowl of warmed toasted walnuts and some crusty bread.
• Toss them into your next grain dish. They would be excellent stirred into a farro and mushroom risotto or a sausage and pasta dish.
• Toss them alongside your roasting meat in the oven. Add them in for the last ten minutes or so. Super easy!
• Mix some ricotta with a bit of Parmesan or mascarpone, salt and pepper. Bake in the oven alongside the grapes. Serve with the warm roasted grapes, all sweet and juicy, atop the baked ricotta. Heavenly.

Super easy and stress free – yet super delicious.  Give them a go!

Happy Fall, all! Buon autunno, tutti!  

Buon appetito!
Michele 

Roasted Grapes

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• Author: Michele Becci

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Description

Elevate your grapes! Roasted grapes turn into a juicy, jammy delicious pile of goodness which can be used atop crostini, stirred into grains or pasta, a topper for ricotta.

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Ingredients

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• 1 pound black grapes
• A few sprigs of fresh thyme
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Kosher salt
• Freshly ground black pepper

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Instructions

• Preheat an oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Place the grapes on a large baking sheet (you can cover the pan with parchment or Silpat to make the cleanup easier).
• Add a few sprigs of fresh thyme to the pan.
• Drizzle with olive oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
• Toss in the oven. Roast for about ten minutes. Give them a flip.
• Roast for another ten minutes or until the grapes caramelize and become juicy and jammy!