Hot Tomatoes!

ooohhh, summer.
Deborah Madison in Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone has a very basic oven roasted tomato sauce that I used as a starting inspiration for my own standard sauce that makes it way into the freezer in little packets to be pulled out when the snow’s gray and I really, really need a little bit of late summer in my life.

Heat oven to 350/375 F.
Slice enough REAL tomatoes in half to fill the roasting pan.
Quarter onions and tuck in the gaps.
Sprinkle the with salt.
Pick some thyme from the porch and dangle branches over the tomatoes.
Drizzle with a little olive oil.

Throw the lot in the oven and leave until the tomatoes start collapsing and getting a bit brown on the bottom, the onions are softening and your kitchen smells like heaven. (About an hour)

Pour in some red wine to deglaze the pan. Scrape along the bottom of the pan with a hard rubber spatula. Push everything into a big heavy pot. Let it cook on the stove at least until the liquids come out and preferably for a couple hours. I often will add a little tomato paste at this point.

Good on pasta. Plain or with a little cheese. Or some shrimp sauteed if you feel fancy.
Good under a plate of pesto encrusted salmon.
Good as a base for a pizza.
Just kinda good.

As the sauce mellows, add additional salt if needed and stir in several minced cloves of garlic and a handful of basil. Just before it goes of the heat entirely, throw in a couple more handfuls of basil.

This changes everything....

I loves myself a good piece of kitchen gear.

I am the sort of girl who will curl up on the couch on a cold winter’s eve with a glass of wine and work my way through the recommended equipment section from selections off my cookbook shelf.

However, I spent many years snorting at the cookbook authors who sang the praises of the mortar and pestle. With a fine and dandy Cuisinart sitting on my shelf, it seemed a pointless anachronism. Any recipe that said it could be done in a mortar and pestle gave a food processor alternative. So, fey I thought.

Then in July I was in San Francisco for a wedding and in the process of meandering the city I came across a cast iron mortar and pestle with a capacity of about a quart. It was true love the second I picked it up. It seemed a ridiculous purchase, so I left it. But then I couldn’t stop thinking about it so I went back a dragged it home.

Incredibly satisfying. A few twists and its able to crush a handful of peppercorns to make a paste for seared tuna steaks or gentle garlic for aioli or toasted sesame seeds into miso for goma.