On the Table: Fresh Tomato Sauce

Summer is rapidly coming to an end, so I am trying to cram as many summer veggies (and fruits!) into my diet as possible!  I have been loading up on tomatoes recently, and I decided to use a whole bunch of them to make a fresh tomato sauce.  There is nothing better!  I used tomatoes of different colors and sizes to give the dish more visual interest, and it was really beautiful.  The dish is incredibly easy to prepare, and you could use any tomatoes you have on hand.  To prepare:

The raw ingredients...

Put a large pot of salted water on to boil.  You are going to want to prepare half pound of pasta according to the package directions (I used rotini).  Try to time it so the pasta is done at the same time as the sauce!

Dice up one small yellow onion and three cloves of garlic.  Put a 3.5 quart pot over medium/low heat and thinly coat the bottom of the pan with canola oil.  When the oil gets hot, add in the onion.  Cook, stirring often, until the onion becomes translucent (browned edges are good too).

While the onion is cooking, dice up the tomatoes (you'll want a decent number of tomatoes - you can see I used one large, three medium, and a handful of grape tomatoes).  Core the tomatoes before dicing them up - the easiest way is to use a small knife to cut around the stem end at an angle, so you can pop the stem remnant out of the tomato.

Dice up the tomatoes into approximately half inch pieces (I just cut the grape tomatoes in half).

(Aren't they beautiful?!)

 When the onions are translucent and/or browned, add in the garlic. 

Cook for just a minute, then add the tomatoes to the pot.

Also add to the pot a few dashes of each of the following: salt, freshly ground black pepper, dried basil (or fresh, if you have it!), dried oregano, and crushed red pepper (if you want some spice!).  Stir well to combine and allow to cook for 15-20 minutes.

When the pasta is ready, add it into the sauce.

Stir well to combine, and allow to cook for a few minutes.  Taste and adjust seasoning.  Stir in a sprinkling of high quality olive oil.

Serve topped with grated parmesan cheese.

Enjoy!