Simple Pasta Sauce

Ok, first off this isn't going to be one of those fancy cooking blogs where more time is spend composing and setting up pictures than is actually spent making the food. Unless someone wants to gift me with a Canon EOS 7D.  Then we'll talk f-stops and apertures.  Or go see my friend Leigh for a gifted camera-slinger. 

This is a simple pasta sauce, suitable for vegetarians, vegans, or anyone who likes pasta.  Seriously, as long as you have some basic knife skills and can work a can opener, you're good to go.

First step - gather the ingredients.  You will need:

1 - 28oz can whole tomatoes.  I like Muir Glen Fire Roasted
1 - 6 oz can tomato paste.  Again Muir Glen
3 cloves of chopped garlic - more or less to taste.  I used two since Carol doesn't like a whole lot of garlicky goodness
1 small onion, chopped
1 tbs. chopped fresh oregano or 1 tsp dried.
3 tbs. chopped fresh basil
Olive oil
Sugar (vegan sugar is available or use Stevia)
Salt

Got all that?  Good.  Now, heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a good-sized saucepan over medium heat and add the onion, garlic and salt to taste.  Saute until the onions are getting a little soft, but be careful to not burn the garlic or else you'll have to start over, because that will taste nasty.  Trust me.

Open the can of tomatoes and start grabbing them out.  You can use your (hopefully recently washed) hands since you're going to crush those suckers into the saucepan anyway.  Or you can be a wimp and fish them out with tongs.  Either way, hold it in your hand over the saucepan and squeeeeeeeeeze them all into the pan.   The idea is to make little pieces from big chunks.  Do this with all of them, then dump the juice from the can into the pan, Stan.

Starting to look like a sauce now, right?  A bit runny, but it's getting there.  Now, add in the oregano, maybe 2 tsp of sugar to knock back the acid a bit, and the tomato paste.  Stir that up good until the paste is all incorporated and the sauce is nice and thick.  Make sure it's all heated through and toss in the basil. 

You're done.  This stuff will taste better than anything you can get out of a jar, and you can tweak it how you want.  Throw in some roasted red peppers, more garlic, olives, mushrooms, whatever strikes your taste buds.  I tossed in a 1/2 bag of Morningstar Farms Grillers Crumbles that we had in the freezer and served it over whole-wheat penne.

Yum.

Corn Cob Cutter

I have had one of these in my kitchen for quite a while now. I thought it was a pretty cool tool, it would just zip the kernels right off the cob. Easy, right?

Wrong...

For a couple reasons. First, I like corn on the cob just the way it is, no need to remove it from the cob prior to eating. And B, on the occasions I have tried to use it, the corn is too big. Today for example - I stopped at a roadside stand (Ok, it wasn't really on the side of the road, it was in the parking lot of Westen Bowl) and bought some fresh corn, tomatoes, and a yellow zuchinni for a dinner idea. After shucking and steaming the corn, the cob cutter just wasn't up to the task. My trusty santoku was more than adequate though.

It not only made short work of decompiling the kernels (nerd alert), it also chopped three tomatoes and chiffoned some fresh basil. These all got tossed into a bowl with about 3 Tbs of olive oil, 1/4 cup of fresh lime juice, some zest from the lime, and a 15oz can of drained and rinsed chickpeas.

While that tasty mixture was being assembled, a box of whole-wheat spaghetti was busy boiling in anticipation of the tasty sauce.

An interjection: Carol is not used to pasta not being smothered in a red sauce. She looked at what I was making, and asked if I was going to add anything else to it while pointing at the can of tomato paste in the open cabinet. I said nope, this is the sauce right here. She looked a little leery, but she trusts my kitchen skills :)

When the pasta was done, I tossed in the de-cobbed corn to heat it just a little more, then drained it all. Back into the pot it went along with the sauce. A couple good stirs and it was good to go.

Yeah, it was good. Pretty dang good. Carol had seconds...

And to cap it off, fresh, seeded watermelon. Not that unseeded, tasteless crap. Real watermelom has seeds.