Friday's Fixin's: Fresh Tomato Pasta Sauce

This week’s recipe is fresh tomato pasta sauce that is incredibly easy and fast and delectable. Why pasta?  Well because this is a simple “go in your garden” (or in my case, the farmer’s market) and make dinner recipe. The tomato is what makes it so amazing, so buy the best, sweetest tomatoes that you can!  If you buy grocery tomatoes (which I do in a pinch), you can add 1 teaspoon of honey or sugar to sweeten them up. How’s that for a fun tip?

Chef Maili and I had so fun making and gobbling up this recipe!  The Silver Lining is that we made enough for the HOTY and Suddenly Seven to enjoy some too!

An added Silver Lining is the health benefits of tomatoes. You see, tomatoes are packed with lycopene, a potent and effective antioxidant that also helps protect the DNA in cells from damage that can lead to cancer. Oh, and evidence supports the fact that our bodies absorb lycopene better from cooked tomatoes.

I hope that you enjoy this as much as we are!

Fresh Tomato Pasta Sauce

Chef Maili Brocke

Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons grape seed oil
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 6 garden tomatoes, chopped
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 8 basil leaves, chopped
• 1/8 teaspoon of red pepper flakes (can add more if you want it super hot)
• 1 teaspoon honey
• 1 box of pasta (unless you make your own and if you do, then you are a better cook than I!). I prefer the Lundberg Gluten-Free Organic Rice Pasta.

Instructions

1. Boil water for the pasta.
2. Core and then chop the tomatoes.
3. Sautée garlic in grape seed oil for 1 minute on medium/high heat.
4. Add tomatoes, honey, salt, and red pepper flakes.
5. Cook pasta per instructions on the box and combine with the tomato sauce.
6. Serve and enjoy!

To get more of Maili’s amazing recipes, check out her blog: The Maili Files

Special thanks to Blue Caleel for taking the fun photos!