Yet Another Thing to do with Tomatoes

I have been being very creative here. But not necessarily in a crafty sort of way. I have made some more stitch markers seeing as I have found an outlet in town for them. And I have been taking an absolutely wonderful bamboo basket workshop from a bamboo master Jiro Yonezawa. It is wonderful to feel such inspiration. I hope to be able to steal some images from Linda's camera to do a blog post on it. Tomorrow is the last day and my mind is working overtime with possibilities.
So maybe I have been more creative than I first thought.
But today. Today my best creativity happened when I came home from work (I did work this afternoon). I had decided to use up yet more tomatoes and make an uncooked pasta sauce for supper tonight. I don't know if any of you have ever heard of putanesca sauce, but (if stories are to be believed) it originated in Italy and was a favorite of , ahem, ladies of loose morals. In other words, ladies of the evening. The story says that these ladies would eat a pasta (we are talking Italy here) that was rich in garlic, olives, and anchovies, and would have breath so foul that they would not have kiss their .... clients.
No clients here, and seeing as we all ate the sauce, no kisses have been spared.
So enough of the history and on to the recipe.....

Uncooked Tomato Sauce

14 black olives - pitted and chopped coarsely
3-5 cloves of garlic - chopped or crushed
1 medium red onion - chopped finely
1 red pepper finely diced - optional
1/4 cup fresh parsley -finely chopped
1/4 cup fresh basil - finely chopped
1 tbsp fresh thyme
a few dashes of Louisiana hot sauce
1/4 cup olive oil - I use extra virgin
2 tbsp white wine vinegar
salt and pepper to taste
6 - 8 - 10 -12 tomatoes - it just really matters how many tomatoes you need to get used up quickly. They should be chopped and drained through a strainer for a few minutes.

Mix everything together in a big bowl and serve over cooked pasta. I usually put a bit of olive oil in the pasta and spoon the sauce on each plate. This makes enough for all 6 of us using about 450 g of pasta so scale as you need to. Or just spoon the left over sauce on some bread that had been brushed with olive oil and toasted under the broiler.

oops. Almost forgot to mention the freshly grated parmesan cheese that gets sprinkled on the top of the pasta (I am sure that it will work equally well with the bread)

And I also want to say that as with a lot of recipes, this is infinitely mutable. You don't like olives... leave 'em out. Add and subtract as you want. Just make sure that it never sees a burner (with exception to the pasta of course) and all will be well.


Both Bill and I expressed a desire to have a camera when we sat down to eat tonight. The colours were marvelous.