Good Use for Garden Tomatoes and Basil: Part 1

 

Is there any better vegetable than a garden tomato? I just don't think there is!

I found some great ways to make use of my mom's garden tomatoes (thanks for sharing your crop, mom!). I'll share them one by one (to make them easier to keep straight!).

Pasta with Roasted Tomato Sauce

Ingredients:

5 plum tomatoes
1/2 teaspoon sugar
Coarse salt and ground pepper
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons capers (optional)
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
3/4 pound spaghetti
Handful fresh basil leaves, to taste

Directions:

Roast the tomatoes: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Halve plum tomatoes. On two large rimmed baking sheets, arrange tomatoes, cut side up, and sprinkle with sugar. Bake until softened and edges are crinkled, about 1 hour. Let cool.

Set a large pot of salted water to boil. Meanwhile, in a bowl, combine tomatoes, oil, capers (if using), and lemon juice; season with salt and pepper. Cook pasta until al dente. Drain pasta and return to pot; toss with tomato mixture. Serve pasta topped with basil.

Source: Everyday Food, September 2009. You can find it here.

Notes: I used home grown tomatoes which were a little small. So, I used a lot more than five. Even so, I used more tomatoes than what the recipe calls for because I like my pasta with a lot of tomatoes! I used kitchen shears to cut the tomatoes into bite size pieces. I should have used more capers too because I loved the capers in this recipe!

I used bottled lemon juice because I was lazy and a whole pound of pasta rather than 3/4 pound because that way, you just have more leftovers, right? Yum! Oh, and I cut the basil with my kitchen shears rather than having whole basil leaves in my pasta.

Oh, and heck, just throw some grated Parmesan on top too, if you like. It was great with and without the Parmesan.

This was really good and very simple to put together. A great weeknight meal.