The Hot Handle

A blog interspersed with occasional gluten free recipes.

Please note: If you have a family member who requires a gluten free diet, be sure to use a cast iron skillet that has never previously touched gluten....and if it has, scrub it all down completely and re-season, to be on the safe side.

Looking for information on Celiac Disease? There are many good sites, but here is one to get started with:
www.celiacdisease.net/celiac-disease-101.



Saturday, August 27, 2011

Fresh Tomato Sauce



Last night we had a bunch of fresh tomatoes which were given to us.  I was out having coffee with a friend, went home and decided that I needed to use all of them.  How should I do that with the limited time I had?

Well, first off I let hubby know dinner might not be quite ready when he got home!

Somehow I got a pasta dinner together in about 1 1/2 hours.  It's a fair amount of work, but the result was great!

Fresh Tomato Sauce with Basil

1.  Fill a 2-qt saucepan about 2/3 full with water and heat it to boil. 

2.  Put a 4-qt saucepan on the stove with 2 Tbs of olive oil.  Add one onion, chopped.  Let it cook a few minutes while you proceed to the next step.

3.  Wash ~4 lbs of tomatoes.  Drop them into the boiling water 2 at a time.  When the skins have blistered, pull them out with a slotted spoon.  Put them into cold water until cool enough to handle, then remove the skins.  Cut tomatoes in half and remove green/hard parts.  Poke your fingers through them and let all the seeds slide out into a trash receptacle.  Hold what is left over the 4-qt saucepan, and squish them into the pan to join their onion and oil counterparts.  Keep doing this until your tomatoes are all in the pan.  Yes, this is messy but if you do it with a CD of Andrea Bocelli singing in the background you will feel creative and romantic.

4.  Add 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp sugar, and black pepper to taste.

5.  Get yourself some fresh basil, a nice bunch of it.  Rinse it off and shake it dry.  Grab some clean kitchen shears and trim off irregular pieces of basil leaves.  Drop these into the 4-qt pan as you cut. 

6.  Let the whole thing simmer on medium-low for about an hour, uncovered.

7.  Meanwhile, heat up some water in yet another pan to cook up some gluten free pasta.

8.  As your pasta is cooking, decide it you want to eat your sauce chunky, as we did, or if you want it thicker.  I figured if I wanted it thicker I could have put in some tomato paste, but we decided to leave it alone.  Also, if we didn't want the watery broth, I could have pureed the whole thing in the pan by using my hand blender.  We didn't do this, either.

9.  Toss pasta with some of the sauce.  Serve with extra sauce and parmesan.  Consume with pride. 

10.  Smile!