I had a bunch of local Roma tomatoes at the end of the harvest season and needed to do something with them. I decided to make homemade pizza sauce. I used the olive oil dough recipe from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day for the pizza dough, which was fabulous and really easy. I found this recipe for the sauce - it was actually kind of hard to find a recipe that did not call for canned tomatoes or tomato puree. I wanted to find a recipe that I could use when we live overseas, where I can't just run over to Walmart for a can of tomatoes.
This sauce was great and pretty easy to make. I used dried oregano because that's all I had, fresh basil from our patio garden, and added salt and pepper to taste at the end. I seeded the tomatoes, but did not bother peeling them, which I liked about this recipe. I used my immersion blender to puree it at the end. My husband was very impressed that you can make good pizza sauce from scratch (goodbye, Walmart pizza sauce! At least when we have good, fresh tomatoes).
Showing posts with label tomatoes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tomatoes. Show all posts
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Mozzarella, Tomato and Basil Salad
When we were on vacation in Colorado, one of our friends made this delicious appetizer. The other name for it is Insalata Caprese, and it is a classic dish from the Italian region of Campania (thanks Wikipedia). We loved it and it is a very easy, yet elegant dish to serve. Here is a paraphrased recipe:
Ingredients:
Fresh mozzarella
Tomatoes (I used grape tomatoes. You can also use cherry tomatoes, or sliced tomatoes)
Fresh basil
Olive oil
Balsamic vinegar
Put the mozzarella and the tomatoes in a serving dish. Cut the basil up (I stacked the leaves, rolled them up, and then cut them into slivers), and sprinkle the basil on top of the mozzarella and tomatoes. Drizzle olive oil and balsamic vinegar on top. I mixed it all up at this point to evenly disperse the oil and vinegar. Viola! You are done.
I brought this to an Italian themed potluck tonight and people raved. And it only took me about 5-10 minutes to make this! We served it with slices of French baguette but you could eat this by itself too. You can also thread them onto toothpicks, but that takes too much work in my opinion. This is a great, easy dish you can quickly throw together for a party, and people think you are a fabulous cook because of it.
Ingredients:
Fresh mozzarella
Tomatoes (I used grape tomatoes. You can also use cherry tomatoes, or sliced tomatoes)
Fresh basil
Olive oil
Balsamic vinegar
Put the mozzarella and the tomatoes in a serving dish. Cut the basil up (I stacked the leaves, rolled them up, and then cut them into slivers), and sprinkle the basil on top of the mozzarella and tomatoes. Drizzle olive oil and balsamic vinegar on top. I mixed it all up at this point to evenly disperse the oil and vinegar. Viola! You are done.
I brought this to an Italian themed potluck tonight and people raved. And it only took me about 5-10 minutes to make this! We served it with slices of French baguette but you could eat this by itself too. You can also thread them onto toothpicks, but that takes too much work in my opinion. This is a great, easy dish you can quickly throw together for a party, and people think you are a fabulous cook because of it.
Friday, August 31, 2007
Grouper with Tomato and Basil
Kroger had a sale on flash-frozen fish, so I bought some grouper. I've only had grouper when I've vacationed in Florida and it was in the form of a sandwich, so I didn't know a good way to cook these. I had to make dinner in a hurry a few nights ago so I made this recipe. It was pretty good, not fabulous but a quick weeknight meal. I don't cook fish very often, so I think I cooked it a little longer than I should have. I used local organic tomatoes, basil, and garlic.
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
Mellowed Fresh Tomatoes for Pasta
I subscribe to Weeknight Kitchen, a weekly e-newsletter from The Splendid Table. I was planning on just making spaghetti tonight - and today's recipe was for pasta and fresh tomatoes, which was perfect! I had a few homegrown tomatoes that I needed to use today, which were great. Local tomatoes are so much better than store bought. I also have a basil plant at home and just plucked off a few leaves for the dish. This was easy and delicious. It was a nice departure from the usual spaghetti and Walmart pasta sauce combo. It actually made spaghetti feel fancy!
I picked up a couple of boxes of Barilla Plus spaghetti for this - it is a new multigrain pasta which was actually pretty good. I've tried whole wheat spaghetti and didn't like the texture, so this was a nice alternative that is a little more healthy than plain old spaghetti.
Mellowed Fresh Tomatoes for Pasta
Copyright 2007 Lynne Rossetto Kasper
Serves 6 to 8 as a first course, 4 to 6 as a main dish
* 1 clove garlic, split
* 3 pounds richly flavored tomatoes (if possible, one-third cherry type, one-third mellow-tasting, and one-third low-acid), unpeeled, unseeded, cut into 1/2-inch dice
* 2 generous pinches hot red pepper flakes
* 1/3 cup good tasting extra-virgin olive oil
* 1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt
* 1 pound spaghetti, or linguine
* 6 quarts boiling salted water
* 1/8 teaspoon fresh-ground black pepper, or to taste
* 3 tight-packed tablespoons fresh basil leaves, torn
* 1 cup fresh-grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese (optional)
1. Vigorously rub a pasta serving bowl with the garlic and discard the clove. Add the tomatoes, red pepper, oil, and the salt. Gently combine. Let stand at room temperature from 30 minutes to 3 hours.
2. When ready to eat, cook the pasta in fiercely boiling salted water, stirring often, until tender yet firm to the bite. Drain in a colander and turn it into the pasta bowl. Quickly add the black pepper and basil, and toss everything together. Taste the pasta for seasoning and serve. If you like, pass cheese at the table
I picked up a couple of boxes of Barilla Plus spaghetti for this - it is a new multigrain pasta which was actually pretty good. I've tried whole wheat spaghetti and didn't like the texture, so this was a nice alternative that is a little more healthy than plain old spaghetti.
Mellowed Fresh Tomatoes for Pasta
Copyright 2007 Lynne Rossetto Kasper
Serves 6 to 8 as a first course, 4 to 6 as a main dish
* 1 clove garlic, split
* 3 pounds richly flavored tomatoes (if possible, one-third cherry type, one-third mellow-tasting, and one-third low-acid), unpeeled, unseeded, cut into 1/2-inch dice
* 2 generous pinches hot red pepper flakes
* 1/3 cup good tasting extra-virgin olive oil
* 1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt
* 1 pound spaghetti, or linguine
* 6 quarts boiling salted water
* 1/8 teaspoon fresh-ground black pepper, or to taste
* 3 tight-packed tablespoons fresh basil leaves, torn
* 1 cup fresh-grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese (optional)
1. Vigorously rub a pasta serving bowl with the garlic and discard the clove. Add the tomatoes, red pepper, oil, and the salt. Gently combine. Let stand at room temperature from 30 minutes to 3 hours.
2. When ready to eat, cook the pasta in fiercely boiling salted water, stirring often, until tender yet firm to the bite. Drain in a colander and turn it into the pasta bowl. Quickly add the black pepper and basil, and toss everything together. Taste the pasta for seasoning and serve. If you like, pass cheese at the table
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Margherita Pizza
I made this pizza tonight and based it off the Margherita Pizza recipe from the All New Joy of Cooking. I have not yet learned how to make homemade pizza dough, so we bought store-brand premade pizza crusts and used those instead. This was pretty easy and was great! I used store-brand pizza sauce, four diced Roma tomatoes, about 1/3 cup basil, some grated Parmesan, and shredded mozzarella, then baked it at 450 degrees for about 11 minutes. It was a good, quick, tasty meal.
I borrowed a book on cooking a few months ago from the library, and the most useful tip I got from it was how to freeze basil. I tried growing basil in a little flowerpot this summer and fall, but it didn't work out too well (note to self: frost kills basil pretty quickly, bring the plant in sooner next year). My local grocery store sells basil in these big clamshell containers, but they cost $3-4 dollars and a lot of it would go bad before I could use it. Then I learned that you could freeze basil, and, well, basically my life changed forever. All you do is rinse it, pick the leaves off the stems, and dry the leaves. Then you take a long sheet of wax paper, lay the leaves on it in a single layer, roll up the wax paper, stick it in a freezer bag, throw it in your freezer, and voila! You have basil whenever you want. It won't look fresh in your dishes, but the taste is preserved. So I used some of my frozen basil on our pizza and saved myself $3-4 and a trip to the store.
I borrowed a book on cooking a few months ago from the library, and the most useful tip I got from it was how to freeze basil. I tried growing basil in a little flowerpot this summer and fall, but it didn't work out too well (note to self: frost kills basil pretty quickly, bring the plant in sooner next year). My local grocery store sells basil in these big clamshell containers, but they cost $3-4 dollars and a lot of it would go bad before I could use it. Then I learned that you could freeze basil, and, well, basically my life changed forever. All you do is rinse it, pick the leaves off the stems, and dry the leaves. Then you take a long sheet of wax paper, lay the leaves on it in a single layer, roll up the wax paper, stick it in a freezer bag, throw it in your freezer, and voila! You have basil whenever you want. It won't look fresh in your dishes, but the taste is preserved. So I used some of my frozen basil on our pizza and saved myself $3-4 and a trip to the store.
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