easy to do, popular with the masses, versatile, totally in tune with summer's bounty... on our first trip to Italia, i knew that gone were the days of opening a jar of (God forbid!) Prego for dinner. i had some ridiculous phobia about homemade sauce (or "gravy" if you are on Long Island!) for my pastas.
imagine.
all those years when i canned my own tomatos & could have done this with them. oh well. after watching signora Lucia in la sua bella cucina, deftly preparing her salsa, i was cured! and since returning Stateside that time, to the delight of my gang, it's homemade.
it's almost enough to make me brave the adventures of homemade pasta. hmmmm....
and for you, this Wednesday, i present my aberration of Lucia's culinary triumph:
Salsa di Pomodoro
*add a generous amount of extra virgin olive oil to a pan (enough to saute as below)
*finely chop 1/2 a medium red onion & 5 cloves garlic
*roughly grate 2 carrots
*add onion, garlic & carrots to olive oil, saute til soft
*add 1-28 oz. can San Marzano tomatos (be sure they are the real thing...you won't be sorry) OR, if you can't find them add 2-14.5 oz. cans petite diced tomatos - i am totally sold on Del Monte's diced tomatos with garlic & olive oil as a substitute, but in a perfect world i would be using fresh tomatos!
*optional: add 1-15 oz. can plain tomato sauce (my children prefer this addition)
*simmer to marry flavors well
*season to taste with fresh ground pepper & sea salt
*add chopped fresh basil, to taste
*finish with a few splashes of red wine, you guessed it...to taste
*heat just a bit longer, then serve over whatever pasta you prefer!
Buon Appetito!
Buon Appetito!
4 comments:
Well you know that I'm a big fan of this sort of thing ;)
My mom has been known to doctor up a jar of Prego or whatnot on the fly--doesn't end up half bad if you can counteract the damage they've done to the tomato flavor ;)
I'm gonna give this recipe a try.
Just ask sognatrice, I LOVE Italian cuisine.
YUM!
p.s. I've used PREGO in a pinch, before, too!
Oooh, wonderful. If you want to share any tomato canning techniques, I am ALL EARS. Nothing's better than homegrown tomatoes, except maybe homegrown tomato sauce. :)
Oh YUM!!
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