Express: spaghetti with tomato sauce

When in doubt, have some spaghetti with tomato sauce!

It’s quick and easy and delicious!

A lot of people do not realize how easy it is to make your own tomato sauce. It always beats buying ready-made sauce with a million additives that you really don’t want. I’ve always added this recipe, if you even want to call it a recipe, in a e-booklet I prepare for family and friends when they travel.

To serve 2 people all you need is:

  • 4 medium sized tomatoes, chopped
  • good quality extra virgin olive oil
  • 2 cloves garlic, smashed and roughly chopped
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • your choice of pasta (penne or spaghetti works best)

In a small sauce heat the olive oil and then add the garlic, cook for 1 minute. Add then tomatoes and cook until it bubbles. Reduce to low heat and leave to simmer for 20 minutes.

The tomatoes will turn into a thick sweet sauce. Add the salt and pepper to taste and remove from heat.

Meanwhile, cook the pasta as instructed and save a ladle-full of the pasta water. In the same pot that you cooked the pasta in, return the drained pasta, the tomato sauce and the pasta water and mix under very low heat.

And enjoy!

Pappa la pomodoro – Italian محروق صبعة

I wanted to write this post when I got back from my Italy trip but decided to wait because this dish is the perfect Ramadan dish. Pappa la pomodoro is a traditional Tuscan bread and tomato soup.

The first time I saw it was on a food TV show a couple of years ago and I was intrigued. I took my copy of The Silver Spoon and searched for the recipe but I didn’t quite like the method. I kind of remembered how they made it on the show so I picked and chose what ingredients and method of cooking I was more comfortable with and created this recipe.

I have made this dish numerous times and every time it’s a little bit different because I never follow a recipe so it was always a couple of this , a pinch of this, a handful of this but yesterday I measured everything to have a recipe people can actually follow!

Of course when I was in Florence, I had this wonderful soup so let’s make a comparison.

Florence's pappa la pomdoro


Budour's pappa la pomodoro

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