Simple Fresh Tomato Pasta Sauce

I’m pretty sure I have said somewhere before that I’ll rave about a basic fresh tomato pasta sauce. Well, as you may have already figured out, that time has come! Ready in as little as 20 minutes (though if you can bear with it doing it slower is even better) and with just 4 basic ingredients it really is a doddle (olive oil is an ingredient, sugar and salt are seasoning). Italian house mate has informed me that they only use cherry tomatoes to make pasta sauce like this, as the large ones create a rather orange outcome…so there you go, some real Italian wisdom! You can make a sauce with as few as 8 cherry tomatoes if you use good pasta that the sauce really sticks to. The key to this is to cook the onions as slowly as possible to bring out their natural sweetness. 

Ingredients

Approx 500g cherry tomatoes
1 white onion
1 clove of garlic 
Pinch of sugar
Pinch of salt
Extra Virgin Olive Oil


Dice the onions and garlic (or crush the garlic if you have a crusher). Halve the tomatoes.

Heat a pan with a good glug of olive oil in and add the onions and garlic. Cook very slowly for as long as you can stand, keep them moving so they don’t brown. After at least 10 minutes add the tomatoes and turn the heat to medium. After another 10 minutes when the tomatoes have started to break down taste and add sugar and salt as needed. Stir and continue cooking on low for another 5 minutes (or prepare earlier and turn off the heat at this point, then heat before serving).

Just before serving you can add (though it is not necessary) any mix of fresh herbs you fancy. Basil is obviously a classic favourite but parsley and coriander work nicely too. 

Gazpacho

If the idea of cold soup turns your stomach, then of course, I do understand...but bear with me. This is the perfect remedy for a hot and airless day, not only is it uber healthy and refreshing, but it'll help keep you hydrated too!

I’m afraid to say that gazpacho is one of the few things that I have never particularly liked my mother’s version of, and there is one reason for that. It’s because she never adds the bread. There’s fair reason for this, when I was a young’un I couldn’t eat gluten until I was at least 8 years old, and then about 8 years ago my father found out he is also intolerant to it, so she’s been fairly restricted. Unfortunately, it is something that you cannot do without in this recipe. In fact, if you take gazpacho to its original form it didn’t even contain tomatoes and was a soup made from bread, oil and garlic.

I didn’t actually have stale bread, but I left it out in the sun for a bit and that worked beautifully. I must say for my first attempt at gazpacho I’m blooming chuffed! Eating it out in the sun took me right back to family holidays in Spain and my sister and I ordering it at every meal (oh and Spanish Housemate approved so what more can I ask for!?)

Ingredients

Approx. 1kg very ripe tomatoes

2/3 large cucumber

3 cloves of garlic

1 red pepper

1 green pepper

1 thick slice stale crusty bread

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Sherry or Red Wine Vinegar

Salt

You will need a hand blender or food processor for this.

Soak the bread in a bowl of cold water and put aside.

Chop the peppers and place into a large bowl or if you have a food processor the bowl of that. Peel the cucumber and chop roughly, add to bowl. Crush the garlic into the chopped veg (or if you don’t have a garlic crusher just chop finely).

Core the tomatoes; this is just taking out the hard white bit in the middle. You can usually cut in half and pull it out with your fingers, or cut into quarters if struggling.  You only need to do this if using big tomatoes, cherry or plum will be fine as they are.  Roughly chop the tomatoes and add to the bowl.Once the bread has been soaking for about 20 minutes, squeeze out the water and add in pieces to the bowl.

Add a good couple of glugs of olive oil and blend until smooth. Once smooth, taste and add salt and vinegar as needed. Then push through a sieve until you can’t get any more liquid out.

Chill before serving for at least an hour.

Serve with chopped pieces of cucumber, peppers, olives, croutons, boiled egg, serrano ham…it’s your choice, and don't forget a good drizzle of olive oil.