Digging in

Despite the very fall like temperatures this weekend, I will continue to dig in my heels and hang on to summer until the last piece of produce has been plucked from our garden!
Roasted Tomato sauce seemed like an excellent use for a basket of various ripening tomatoes. Super easy to make and the result is another pretty much tastes-like-summer-in-a-bowl kind of thing.

 The original recipe can be found here.  I washed and chopped 4 generous cups of tomatoes and tossed them with olive oil and salt and pepper on a baking sheet with a large chopped onion and about 6 cloves of garlic.  I sprinkled the whole lot with dried red chili peppers and roasted everything in a 425 degree oven for about 40 minutes.  Once cooled a bit, I put the roasted vegetables in my blender with two tablespoons of olive oil and a very generous handful of basil (also still hanging on in the garden) and blended everything until smooth.  That's it. Use as is or warm and spoon over cooked pasta. If you don't eat pasta, spoon it over roasted spaghetti squash.  Makes a superior spread for homemade pizza or dip for garlic toast.  Thinned with a little chicken or vegetable stock and warmed, it would make a delicious tomato soup with a few crusty croutons floating on top.
Have no fear, when summer does finally leave us for fall, this dish can be created in the form of a one pot wonder found here.  Mark and I have both made this in about 10 minutes (maybe 15 with prep time) and it is really delicious.  I made the following tweeks to the original recipe and it worked beautifully: I used a 19oz can of petite cut diced tomatoes, 375g of linguine, a full tsp of red pepper flakes and do not scrimp on the onion or garlic.  A really fast, fresh tasting meal with a few pantry staples when you are at a loss for what to make for supper.  Comes together quicker then you could dial for and pick up take-out. Fresh basil is optimal, but a generous spoonful of basil pesto would likely do the trick in a pinch here too.

Has anyone ever heard of Food Huggers?! I found these today at Winners and they are the most ingenious little things!

Also sold at Fenigo.  So cool.  You can use them on glass jars too of which I always have a few kicking around without their matching lids.