Find Your Dinner at the Farmers' Market: Garlic Tomato Sauce

We finally packed up our summer stuff and headed back to the city after six weeks at the cottage. Normally I feel really sorry for myself when I have to leave in September and I make my husband take me out for dinner on that first evening home. But we paid one last summer visit to our vegetable lady before we return in the fall and have her wonderful squash, so I was inundated with tomatoes and garlic. In fact, I have so much garlic that despite the preponderance of vampire books, movies and TV shows, I have nothing to fear.

I thought about roasting some garlic, but that would take too long. I decided to make a simple garlic tomato sauce that required about 10 minutes of preparation to peel and chop the ingredients and then would take an hour to cook without any effort needed on my part. Without the use of onions, tomato paste, herbs and wine that you often put into tomato sauce, it had a clean taste that was the essence of late summer.

I just cooked a bit of pasta and we had it on top with some fresh basil and Parmesan cheese as a garnish, but you could add chickpeas or beans for some protein. This sauce is a great base for any number of recipes. It would be fabulous with a homemade ravioli, or you could add it to baked eggplant, or simmer some tofu in it. Don't be alarmed by the amount of garlic used, it ends up being quite sweet tasting.

Garlic Tomato Sauce

2 lb ripe plum tomatoes
2 heads garlic, cloves peeled and halved lengthwise and any green sprouts from center discarded
6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
3/4 teaspoon hot red-pepper flakes
salt to taste

1. Cut an X in bottom of each tomato and blanch in a large pot of boiling water 10 seconds. Immediately transfer tomatoes with a slotted spoon to an ice bath to cool, then peel, seed, and chop.


2. Cook garlic in oil in a small heavy pot over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until golden, 3 to 5 minutes. Add tomatoes, red-pepper flakes, and 1/2 teaspoon salt and simmer, covered, stirring occasionally, 1 hour. Season with salt.

Difficulty Level: Easy

From Gourmet, May 2008

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Find Your Dinner at the Farmers' Market