Now I know it has gotten chilly in the Midwest-but you still may have a lot of tomatoes you harvested sitting on your windowsill. This is a recipe that uses garden tomatoes in a very light, sweet sauce.
My recipe uses an old fashioned Italian food mill to puree the tomatoes. You can also use a food processor or blender, then strain it through a fine sieve. I do urge you to get a food mill-it is so much easier to deal with than hauling out the big machinery. I found mine at a thrift store that looked like it was never used.
Ingredients:
28 oz. or so fresh garden tomatoes, roughly chopped (I mix them up-some plum, some bigger ones, some golden yellow ones, whatever the garden wants to provide)
4 cloves garlic total, crushed
1 onion (divided in half and chopped, each half reserved separately)
2 Tbsp. sweet white wine
2 Tbsp. Olive Oil total
1/4 tsp. salt and fresh ground pepper
sugar, 1 lump, optional
1/4 cup fresh chopped basil
1/4 cup fresh chopped parsley
grated Parmesan cheese
Phase 1:
Saute 2 cloves chopped garlic and half the chopped onion in a saucepan in 1 Tbsp heated olive oil. Cook until soft. Add chopped tomatoes to the pan, add salt and pepper, and cook for 10 minutes at a simmer. Take off the heat and cool slightly. Run the tomatoes through a food mill over a large bowl. Reserve tomatoes, discard the skin and seeds.
Phase 2:
In the same saucepan, heat the remaining 1 Tbsp. olive oil. Add remaining chopped onion and 2 cloves crushed garlic and saute until softened and beginning to caramelize. Splash 1-2 Tbsp white wine to deglaze the pan. Cook for one more minute. Add pureed tomatoes, salt and pepper. Stir.
Add chopped herbs and cook for 10-15 minutes at a simmer. Adjust seasonings and add sugar if you want. Cook an additional 10-15 minutes-or until sauce has thickened and flavors come together. Serve over pasta with Parmesan cheese.
Flora is an award-winning creative director in Chicago turned food and lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. She is also author to the popular BEE NATIVE! gardening book series and various children's books that celebrate the wonder and hard work of bees and butterflies. Her blog and social spaces inspire thousands to create, learn, cook, grow, and craft, making their world lovelier one pixel/petal/seed/bite/stitch/brushstroke at a time. Follow her on all the social spaces, YouTube, and Amazon, and get creative!
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