Mark and I haven’t been on the same page in a while. His Wednesday Minimalist columns just haven’t tickled my culinary curiosity. And it hurt.

But this week, I’m happy to report, we reconnected through recipe ESP. Last Sunday, I bought a bowl-full of October tomatoes, destined for a pot of pasta all’Amatriciana. And in yesterday’s Minimalist column, Mr. Bittman supplied his readers a simple pasta sauce recipe that makes the most of the season’s last tomatoes. In contrast to his back-to-basics recipe, I augmented my late-season tomato sauce with lots of bacon and onions, but our hearts were in the same place!

Traditionally, pasta all’Amatriciana is prepared with guanciale (an Italian bacon made from pig cheeks), onions, tomatoes, Pecorino Romano cheese, and bucatini (long, thin, tubular pasta). The dish originated in the tiny town of Amatrice outside of Rome. And the latter, larger city is where William and I first sampled the dish on a gut-busting evening at a casual hostaria. William has since requested the dish, but his cries for bacon, tomatoes and onion have been denied until now.

Although I can get guanciale in New York, I Americanized the dish and used thick-cut bacon. If I were making this for a dinner party, I would splurge and get the real thing. For a weeknight meal, I opted for what I had on hand. I also used fresh linguine instead of bucatini—similar shape, no tube. Lastly, recipes for pasta all’Amatriciana call for canned tomatoes (here’s one from Babbo and another from Food and Wine), but using fresh tomatoes lightens the dish and gives it a new sweetness. The tomato flavor is more subtle but it tastes like real tomato—the last gasp of summer that’s been smothered in bacon.

Pasta all’Amatriciana Americana
2 pounds tomatoes
2 tablespoons olive oil
3/4 cup diced thick-cut bacon
1 onion, diced
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
Salt and pepper to taste
1 pound linguine
Pecorino Romano cheese

Instructions
To prepare the tomatoes, bring a large pot of water to a low boil. Core tomatoes, and cut a shallow X into the bottom of the fruit. Place the tomatoes in the boiling water for 10 to 15 seconds. Remove the tomatoes from the water with tongs or a slotted spoon, allow them to cool, and pull off the skin. (You can omit this step if you don’t have time, but you need hot water for pasta anyway. And you can get this step going while you cook the bacon and onion.) Reserve water for cooking the pasta. Roughly dice the tomatoes, and set aside.

Heat olive oil on medium in a large frying pan. Add diced bacon, and cook until crisp. Remove bacon with a slotted spoon, leaving fat in the pan (all of it, unless you’re counting calories). Add onion and cook until browned, about 10 minutes. Sprinkle in red pepper flakes, and cook 1 minute more. Pour in tomatoes and their juices, and cook 10 to 15 minutes, until they break down and the sauce begins to thicken. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Meanwhile, bring the pot of water back to a boil. Salt the water, and cook pasta according to package instructions.

Drain the pasta, toss with sauce, and portion into bowls. Top the pasta with bacon and grated Pecorino Romano.

Serves 4 (main course) or 6 (first course)

Last weekend’s CSA box, contained a head of cabbage nearly double the size of my own gourd. And instead of making slaw or a vegan Indian dish or a slow-braised side, I decided to slum it up with cabbage casserole.

I am American and Southern, and I find casseroles irresistible. Though I’ve ditched the condensed soup of my youth, I can trash up vegetables—even local, organic ones—real good.

I started my recipe research in a logical place for plebeian cuisine: Google. Just Google “cabbage casserole recipe.” It will provide you entertainment to no end. You’ll find all sorts of recipes calling for pasteurized American cheese, cream of something soups, Slap Ya Mama seasoning, and much more. Even thekitchn.com, a trusted recipe source, boasted an older post featuring a “Joy of Cooking” cabbage casserole recipe. My ultimate find was Unky Bob’s Cabbage Casserole—less for the recipe that calls for Equal and more for the name.

I didn’t find the perfect recipe, so I just dumped a mess of dairy—cream cheese, sour cream and cheddar—into and onto cabbage wilted in a healthy portion of bacon grease. The dish was everything I hoped for. Unreasonably rich. Salty. Fatty.

This is trashy enough to put my name on. I am Camille’s Aunt Bo, so I present to you:

Aunty Bo’s Cabbage Casserole
4 slices bacon
1 large onion, diced
6 cups finely shredded cabbage
3 ounces cream cheese, cut into small hunks
1 cup sour cream
Salt and pepper to taste
1 1/2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese
2 tablespoons panko bread crumbs

Instructions
Preheat oven to 375°.

In a large pot, fry up your bacon until crisp. Drain it on paper towels. Add onion to the pot and brown—just a few minutes. Add cabbage to the pot, and stir. Cover the pot, and cook cabbage until it’s wilted but still crisp. Stir in cream cheese until it’s melted. Add sour cream and salt and pepper to taste.

Pour cabbage mixture into a buttered casserole dish. Top with cheese, bacon, and bread crumbs. Bake 20 to 30 minutes, until golden and bubbly.

Serves 6 to 8

Our CSA boxes were replete with greens this week: turnips, radishes, Swiss chard, dandelion greens, bok choy and collard greens. Needless to say, we’re eating greens every night this week, especially since I still had greens hanging out in the fridge from our last box.

First on my hit list was the bunch of collard greens. Earlier this season I braised a batch of collards Southern-style with a little tasso ham, water and a hint of vinegar. This weekend, I found a recipe for Brazilian-style greens that calls for slicing collards into a chiffonade and then flash cooking them a mere two to four minutes. For time sake and curiosity, this seemed like the way to go.

The recipe was simple and stunning. We got to enjoy the flavor and crunch of collards with a minimal time commitment. I used bacon grease instead of olive oil to infuse a Southern touch, and I will most definitely make these again. Thanks to Brazilians, collards are no longer an hour(or more)-long affair.

I played with traditional cooking methods for my okra as well, roasting rather than frying or stewing it. I just toss whole pods with olive oil, salt, pepper and onion, and blasted them at 400° for 25 minutes. The onions and okra had a hint of caramelization, and they still achieved the slippery goodness of stewed okra—just with more flavor. Another victory.

Turnips (my all-time favorite root vegetable) got gussied up with anchovy paste, toasted pecans and fresh parsley. I just sauteed the turnips until tender (you also could roast them, if you like) then tossed them with fishy goodness, nutty crunch and grassy parsley. It was a mouthful of umami and texture.

The veggies paired with wedge of cornbread made a deeply satisfying if not quite deep South dinner.

Brazilian-Style Collards with Bacon
3 strips bacon or 2 to 3 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 to 2 pounds collard greens
Salt and pepper

Instructions
Remove stems from collard greens. Divide the leaves into 2 to 3 thick stacks. Roll a stack of greens into a fat cigar shape, and slice the collards into thin 1/8- to 1/4-inch thick strips. Repeat with remaining greens.

Meanwhile, cook bacon in a large frying pan on medium heat, turning strips every few minutes until crisp. Remove bacon from the pan, drain on paper towels, and crumble. If you’re bacon fat averse or want to prepare a vegetarian dish, omit the bacon and heat olive oil in a large frying pan.

Turn heat up to medium high. Throw greens into the hot bacon grease or olive oil, and cook 2 to 4 minutes. Greens should be tender but still bright green. Season liberally with salt and pepper, and toss in bacon crumbles (if you haven’t eaten them).

Serves 4

Sauteed Turnips with Anchovies, Pecans and Parsley
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil, divided
1 1/2 pounds small turnips, trimmed, halved and thinly sliced
3 teaspoons anchovy paste
Salt and pepper
1/3 cup pecans, chopped and toasted
1/4 cup chopped parsley

Instructions
Stir together anchovy paste and 1 teaspoon olive oil.

In a medium frying pan, heat remaining 2 teaspoons olive oil over medium-high heat. Add turnips to the pan, and cook 8 to 10 minutes, until tender and just golden. Pour anchovy-oil mixture over the turnips, and add salt and pepper to taste. Toss in pecans and parsley and serve immediately.

Serves 4

I made this Red Rice (an approximation of my Mom’s recipe) to accompany the last few links of my Dad’s venison sausage. It’s a humble, Cajun-inspired combination and one-pot wonder. I used my trusty cast iron frying pan to cook the bacon that flavored the dish; saute onion, bell pepper and garlic; and finish cooking the tomato-based rice.

The rice starts on the stovetop but finishes baking, covered, in a hot oven. And instead of baking the sausage on a separate pan, I just popped four links atop the tin foil that covered the rice. This pleased our resident dish washer.

To add some green to the meal and counteract the bacon grease, I made a pan of garlicy spinach, as well. And although it would have fed a normal family of four, William ate half of the rice and sausage. I took care of the spinach.

Red Rice
5 strips bacon
1 medium onion, diced
1 green bell pepper, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 bay leaf
2 teaspoons chopped fresh oregano
1 cup long-grain white rice
1 14-ounce can diced tomatoes
1 8-ounce can tomato sauce (or 2 tablespoons tomato paste mixed into 3/4 cup water)
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
2 teaspoons hot sauce

Instructions
Preheat oven to 375°.

Heat a large cast iron frying pan on medium heat. Add bacon strips, and cook until crisp. Remove bacon and drain on a paper towel. (There shouldn’t be tons of bacon grease left in the pan, but if you’d like, you can remove all but one tablespoon of the fat).When bacon is cool, break it into 1/4-inch pieces.

Add onion, bell pepper, and bay leaf to the pan, and cook until vegetables are soft, 8 to 10  minutes. Add garlic and oregano, and cook 2 minutes more.

Stir in rice, and toast for 2 to 3 minutes. Pour in tomatoes, tomato sauce, salt, black pepper and hot sauce. Top top the rice-tomato mixture with crumbled bacon. Cover the pan (tin foil works just fine for the cast iron) and place into the oven. Bake for 30 minutes, until rice is tender.

Serves 4

We celebrated William’s first final with a crazy, fatty, delicious “cornbread sandwich.” Paula Deen could only dream of eating a Southern supper this beautiful. For me, this is last-meal quality, dripping with pork fat, fried vegetation, cheese, buttermilk and mayonnaise.

The cornbread recipe is our favorite from The New York Times. And after the sandwiches, you’ll have a few slices left over to do as you please. (I tend to eat remnants for breakfast with fried eggs on top.) 

For the sake of serving vegetables, I “stewed” (this is a Southern term for cooked to death) onion, squash and zucchini until there was neither fiber nor nutrient to be found. I generally don’t enjoy limp vegetables, but with a touch of sugar, pepper and butter these could have been nobly served on any meat-and-three buffet (i.e., they suited us just fine last tonight.)

Cornbread sandwich with fried green tomatoes, bacon and cheddar
1 recipe Brown Butter Cornbread with Farmer Cheese and Thyme
8 bacon slices
Fried green tomatoes (see ingredients below)
1 1/3 cups shredded, sharp cheddar
Mayonnaise
Aluminum foil

Fried green tomatoes
Vegetable oil
2 medium green tomatoes, sliced into 1/4-inch rounds
3/4 cup all-purpose flour 
3/4 cup fine cornmeal
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 egg
1/2 cup buttermilk

Sandwich instructions
Prepare corn bread and set aside (it’s easier to slice the cornbread once it has cooled a bit). Leave oven turned on to 375°.

In a large, heavy skillet cook bacon over medium heat until crisp. Place bacon strips onto paper towels to drain, reserving bacon fat in skillet. Set  bacon aside.

Add enough vegetable oil to the bacon grease so it rises 1/2 inch up the skillet, and heat over medium high heat. (If you’re watching your cholesterol, you probably shouldn’t be eating this anyway, but feel free to ditch the bacon grease.) Meanwhile, combine flour, cornmeal, salt, black pepper, and cayenne in a shallow bowl or on a wide plate. In a medium bowl, whisk egg and buttermilk, and add tomato slices to coat. 

When the oil is hot (test with a sprinkle of flour), move tomato slices to flour mixture one at a time, coating evenly. Carefully drop tomatoes into the oil and repeat with half of the slices. Cook the tomatoes until golden, turning once. Drain slices on paper towels. Repeat with second batch.

Divide cornbread into 6 triangles. Remove 4 from the skillet and reserve 2 for another use (you’ll be happy to have extra!). Place each triangle on a square sheet of aluminum foil, large enough to encase the sandwich. Gingerly split the triangle in half, as you would for a sandwich. Top the bottom of the cornbread with 3 to 4 fried tomato slices, 2 strips of bacon, and 1/3 cup cheddar; spread mayonnaise on the interior of the top half of the triangle and sandwich in all the fried goodness. 

Wrap the sandwiches in aluminum foil, place on a baking sheet, and bake for 10 minutes. 

Serves 4 of the happiest people in the world