When life gives you a summer n'oreaster.....

Make sauce!!! Lots & lots of sauce!!


Last week we received even more tomatoes in our CSA share from Plato's Harvest Organic Farm

(yes, that's a big, beautiful, juicy watermelon :)


Onto sauce.... I know that I posted my quick fresh sauce recipe, but now I'm going for the big guns.. the 'stock the freezer' sauce.. the 'I like to pretend I'm an Old Italian grandmother' sauce...


The sauce that I will defrost for my homemade ravioli on Christmas sauce.

Yup.. that's the sauce..

Start by finding some big, comfy socks & turning on some corny 70's tunes

♬♬♬  If you like Pina Coladas♬♬♬


Bring a large pot of water to a boil  & also fill a large bowl with ice water


♬♬ Getting caught in the rain♬♬♬♬

Turn your maters upside down & with a paring knife, make an X in the bottom

 ( I can't see my X's.. perhaps I took the picture first?)

go ahead, make the X

♬♬♬ and the feel of the ocean♬♬♬♬

When the water is boiling, add a few tomatoes at a time & let boil for just about a minute

( take a sip of your coffee )

♬♬and the taste of Champagne♬♬♬


then, using a spider or tongs, remove tomatoes & quickly plunge into the ice bath

The skins should easily peel away

♬♬♬ why don't we peel away..baaam bamm abmm abaa baaamp..peel aaawwaay, into the  night♬♬♬

repeat with all of the tomatoes

( you can use this method to take the skins of of fruits like peaches & plums as well...)

When all of the tomatoes are skinned, dump the water from the stockpot , dry it, ( no need to wash it).. place back on the stove over medium heat & add some olive oil.

When the oil shimmers, add some chopped onion, carrots & celery... season with salt & pepper

yes, I have a purple carrot in there :)

once the veggies caramelize a bit ( you see a little browning ) add some finely chopped garlic ( add this right at the end, because if the garlic is in the pan too soon without liquid, it will burn & scorch & taste yucky)


))) burnt garlic((((


give the veggies one last swirl together

♬♬♬ Night Fever,  Night fevaaaaa  you know how to do it♬♬♬

then, start adding the tomatoes , cutting the cores out as you go..

WHOA!!  did you noticed how my pan changed colors???


♬♬♬♬Saturday.. in the park, I think it was the 4th of July♬♬♬♬

add a couple of bay leaves, kosher salt & pepper, some dried oregano & basil & bring to a simmer.

throw in some 80's tunes

♬♬ I've had the time of my life.. no I've never felt like this before♬♬♬

and let your sauce simmer

and simmer

♬♬♬ Nothing's gunna stop us now...♬♬♬

and simmer

your sauce will get thicker & a deeper color red as the day goes on...

stir it once in awhile and enjoy the amazing aroma..

♬♬♬wasting away again in Margaritaville♬♬♬

I let mine simmer for a good 4 hours. when the sauce is looking thicker... remove the bay leaves then..

 you can do one of 3 things.

1) leave it thick & chunky, test for salt & pepper

2) let cool & blend in batches in a blender; test for seasonings
or
3) use an immersion blender to puree; test for seasonings


I personally don't mind it chunky, but if I leave it chunky, I find that certain family members pick out some of the veggies; by pureeing the sauce, the eat them without knowing ;)



If you can eat it within a week, I store it in a mason jar, just make sure that it is completely cool before you put the lid on..

You also could can it at this point, but I chose to freeze it in portions in zip-lock freezer bags..

after, of course we had some with our sketti & meatballs last night.


This might seem like a lot of work to get from this

to this

but it is so worth it. If you have the opportunity to make sauce from scratch, I highly recommend it.

it is  very gratifying to look at the product at the end of the day.

not the mention to taste it :)


~oxoxo
michelle


♬♬everybody's talkin' bout the new sound honey, but it's still rock & roll to me ♬♬♬♬

Summer. In a bowl :)

I know that I have declared my love of tomatoes before, so just bear with me while I do it again.

and again.

and again.

This week at Plato's Harvest Organic Farm

our share  had 10  pounds of tomatoes!! 10 pounds.. this is NOT a typo :) this is in addition to the pick your own varieties of salsa & cherry tomatoes :)

did I mention that  just LOVE tomatoes?

We also got to pick more string beans

I pondered over what to make for dinner last night, then it hit me like a brick.... I just HAD to make

Fresh tomato sauce

**** you need to use good quality, fresh tomatoes... all of the flavor in this recipe is based on simple, flavorful ingredients....  if you don't have them growing in your yard, find a
Local Farmer's Market
You'll be supporting your local farms & farmers & I PROMISE you you will have the best tasting pasta dish on your table tonight*****



I used 3, maybe 4 tomatoes
2 garlic cloves
4 scallions
a healthy grating of parmesan
A few tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
a handful of basil leaves

Put it all in my food processor & pulsed it a few times so that it blended but didn't puree

season with salt & pepper

and Presto!

I like to add the cubed mozzarella right at the end on top of the pasta, but that's just me, feel free to mix it all in if you please :)

This could not have been simpler or more delicious.

I made a batch of fresh pasta to go along with this. That's a WHOLE other story... but one I will get to, I promise

 Since Ryan doesn't really like tomatoes ( gasp) I also made a simple white sauce with parmesan for him. I put a little bit of the white sauce on my pasta with the tomato sauce.

This was heavenly. So much in fact, that I just had leftovers for breakfast :)

PESTO!!!

One one my family's favorite 'condiments' is pesto.  It is so easy to make & the combination of flavors is just wonderful.
We put it on pizza, bread, chicken, pasta and more.
It also freezes well. I freeze pest in ice cube trays then pop them into a zip lock freezer bag when frozen. Anytime that i need a small amount of pesto, I just defrost a pesto cube!

( I think that you are supposed to be able to do this with leftover wine as well, but we usually don't have 'leftover' wine...)

Here is a basic recipe for  Basil Pesto

1 garlic clove; chopped
2 cups fresh basil leaves; loosely packed
1/4 cup pine nuts; toasted  (be careful, they can burn quickly)
approximately 1/2 cup of extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup grated parmesan
salt & pepper

Place garlic, basil, pine nuts in the bowl of a food processor. Whir until mixture is pureed.  Slowly add olive oil to desired consistency. Stir in parmesan cheese & season with slat & pepper.

I was not able to make this today because we forgot to pick up the pine nuts, but this is the recipe that I use. Classic!



One of the greens that we've received in the last few weeks from Plato's Harvest is arugula.  I absolutely love arugula!! I has a peppery bite to it..  yum!

While it is great as a salad base ( with goat cheese ;)  I wanted to try to use it in another way as well. I found this recipe for arugula pesto.

I did not have pine nuts, so I used pistachios instead. After I shelled them I toasted them. And tasted them. :)

I added a bit of warm water to the mix because I felt that it was a little thick.

The flavor of this pesto is amazing. I think that the blanching of the arugula is to keep that bright green color. I have a tray of it in the freezer right now!!

I'm sure that I will have many more pestos to post  before the end of the summer......

Next up... zucchini!

oxox