fresh tomato sauce

Like I promised in my last blog, this is the direction that I'll be traveling for the time being. I'll post what I had to eat and post it whenever I can throughout the week. I'll still be posting recipes but you may see some posts without recipes and deja vus of old recipes.

Today, I made a quick fresh tomato sauce using plum tomatoes that were on sale. At $1.29 a pound it was definitely a steal. On the side, a spring mix salad w/ a simple lemon vinaigrette (I got a HUGE tub for $1.99) and a couple slices of roasted pork loin that was also on sale this week for $2.59 per pound. It's a fresh tomato sauce because it doesn't require any cooking and you can really taste the freshness of the tomatoes.

Here's the thing about eating healthy on a budget during college. Buy seasonally as the produce will be cheaper if it's in season and look for deals. Of course, fresh apricots are expensive as heck and I don't endorse that you go crazy over them even if they're in season but you should notice that the peaches are pretty cheap right now. Apples will start to drop in price starting September and you'll see various fall vegetables drop in price as well.

Also, if you're buying pre-packaged vegetables (which I don't endorse unless it's EXTREMELY cheap like the spring mix I found), make sure the weight is worth the money you're paying. When you see 2 for $4 deals, iceberg lettuce mix by weight does NOT equal baby spinach by weight. Furthermore, 3 romaine hearts weighing at about 2lbs is almost the same price as 1lb of prechopped romaine hearts. Do the math and you'll discover that 10 seconds of knife work will save you about $2.

Fresh Tomato Sauce
Adapted from Gordon Ramsay, Serves 4

Ingredients:
- 6 ripe, plum tomatoes
- 15 sundried tomatoes in oil
- 2 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
- 4 shallots or 0.5 of an onion, roughly chopped
- 0.5 cup of extra virgin olive oil, plus more to preference
- juice from half a lemon

1) Core and make an X on the top of each plum tomato. Bring a pot of water to a boil and blanch the tomatoes for 45 seconds.
2) Cool the tomatoes in an ice bath and peel the skin.
3) Cut the tomatoes in half and take out the seeds.
4) Roughly chop both the garlic clove and the shallots. We're going to blend so it doesn't really matter if it's perfect.
5) Add all of the ingredients to a blender, season with salt and pepper. Add the olive oil and the juice from half a lemon. Blitz.
6) Blitz until it's at a smooth consistency adding more oil to arrive at that texture. Taste and adjust seasoning.
7) Mix a little sauce with the pasta and spoon more sauce over the pasta before serving.