It was about 95 degrees and humid as anything today, so the idea of turning on the stove or oven was unappealing to say the least. This recipe is from The Spoon and uses two of the things I have in abundance this week: tomatoes and basil.
Combine in a bowl and let rest in a cool place to allow the flavors to mingle for 30 minutes:
1 lb 2 oz tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped*
4 Tbls olive oil
10 leaves of fresh basil, chopped
2 cloves of garlic
salt and pepper
Remove the garlic and discard. Mix in 1 lb of pasta (use the kind with ridges, like penne or spaghetti rigatoni) and serve with Parmesan.
* to prepare the tomatoes, I put them in a pot of boiling water for 1 minute, then lifted them right out with tongs and put them in a bowl of ice water. The skin comes off very easily. I cut them in half and squeezed over the sink to get out the seeds, then chopped.
RESULTS: Not the BEST tomato sauce I ever had, but it wasn't hot, and the kitchen wasn't hot, and there was very little clean up, so the ratio of healthfulness and taste to effort and inconvenience was reasonable. It just wasn't busting with flavor, although you could really taste the basil (and I liked being able to use my own), so I wouldn't make this with dried basil since that's so important in this dish. I only used one garlic clove, since my notes in the cookbook from when I made it last summer said "go easy on the garlic," but maybe it needs that second clove. I kept adding more and more pepper to try to get more flavor in it. But, like I said, it was cool on a hot day.
On another note, Harper came outside with me when I harvested the basil, and she caught the hugest cicada I have ever seen. It must have been a two-pounder. I was in Japan that summer that the cicadas took over so I didn't really get the cicada experience that everyone else did, but I can't even begin to imagine millions of those things. Maybe they were smaller since there were so many. I mean, this thing was HUGE. I halfway tried to get her to drop it, but frankly, I was sort of glad she was doing away with it before it decided it liked the looks of my herbs because they would be DONE for.
4 comments:
Hi Katie-- we have been doing this a LOT lately, it just is too hot and 'light' dishes really help....
I am too lazy to do all that peeling and de-seeding business, good for you, that is very chef-y of you !!!!
Keep in mind that the key to a good tomato sauce is the tomatos, so if your tomatoes weren't very tasty to begin with, there's not much you could have done about it.
What kind of tomatos do you use for your sauce ? When we do these sorts of summer sauces, we use very small cherry-type tomatoes... when you make tomato sauce as a conserve, you use the long tomatos; the round red tomatoes are used here for baked gratin type stuff....
People are very fussy about their tomatos here ! BUT they can't understand why I think canned corn is worthless and the potatos are no hot stuff-- you wouldn't believe how many recipes suffer because there are no Idaho potatos here !!!
This kind of tomato sauce w/ fresh basil goes GREAT with gnocchi-- I make them with just potatos, parmesan cheese and potato flour -- no 'real flour' as that makes them heavy as rocks... sometimes I stick in one egg yolk to hold it all together better, but that makes them less 'light' and fluffy.... I also make them as small as i can-- can't usually get them pencil-eraser size (!!!) but definitely keep them small, they are much better that way..
SOmetimes our fresh tomato pasta dishes come out delectable, sometimes just bleh ! it all depends on the tomatos...
ANother BIG help flavour-wise if you realise your tomatoes are pretty blah can be black olives (although this is more wintery). They add a lot of flavour for the little trouble it takes to slice'em up....
Betsy
actually this is what we are having for today's lunch !!! :o)
B.
Good tips about the tomatoes, thanks Betsy! I think I used romas, which didn't have a whole lot of flavor. Next time I'll try more flavorful ones. Sorry about the canned corn, that's sad!
Good tips about the tomatoes, thanks Betsy! I think I used romas, which didn't have a whole lot of flavor. Next time I'll try more flavorful ones. Sorry about the canned corn, that's sad!
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