Cooking with friends on a weeknight: Fresh tomato sauce

The finished product

Cooking and eating with friends is always better than cooking and eating alone. Even better than indulging in cheese and chocolate while watching a Netflix marathon...

I'm making new friends in DC and part of that means inviting myself over to dinner at friend's houses. Or rather having friends who are welcoming and ask me over for dinner. It helps that through my residency program,  I've met wonderful, lovely, friendly open people who allow me to come over and hang out in their kitchen. Having friends like this is a refuge--fun, relaxing, delicious refuge.

Last week, I took up my friend/co-intern on her open invitation to dinner at her house during the week. Since I mostly prepare vegetarian food for myself, I have added a few vegetarian blogs to my browsing repertoire. One that I really enjoy is Cookie and Kate, as I find most of her recipes accessible in terms of both ingredients and prep time. I liked the look of this fresh tomato sauce, essentially an uncooked tomato sauce, that shines during the hot summer months when it is possible to get fresh, juicy tomatoes at the farmer's market. On Wednesday, I purchased a few golden heirloom tomatoes and fresh garlic to take to my friend's house to make this sauce. 

Spiralizer in action

My friend and her fiance live a short, uphill bike ride away in Georgetown. Biking in Georgetown has the potential to be enjoyable, gliding by the beautiful brick homes with their lush front gardens. However the hills and the aggressive drivers make for a harrowing weekday-evening bike ride through the narrow streets. The drivers in Georgetown believe that if they drive fast enough the roads will magically widen to accommodate their luxury SUVs. The cars tail me closely as I try to bike as quickly as possible up serious hills, but my legs feel like they might burn off after 15-30 seconds of pedaling on pointe. I'm out of shape and the impatience of drivers on my tail or zipping past me does not improve my oxygen capacity.

I arrived to my friend's house, a bit weary and sweaty, but ready to go for a short dog walk before preparing a simple late summer meal. My friend suggested instead of pasta we use her Spiralizer, a pretty cool contraption that quickly turns any fruit or vegetable into pasta-like strings. My co-intern's fiance took on the Spiralizer; she prepared the roast chicken legs; I made the pasta sauce, and their dog kept vigil by the counter for scraps and company.

Simple Fresh Tomato Sauce, adapted from Cookie and Kate, originally from Bon Appetit

Ingredients:
4 medium sized tomatoes, preferably fresh tomatoes, maybe from the farmer's market
1 large clove of garlic
1 handful of parsley leaves, washed and coarsely chopped with a few runs of a knife in either direction
the juice of one lemon
2 tbs of olive oil, more or less, just add for taste and sauce consistency
1 tsp sugar
salt and pepper to taste

1. Cut two and a half of the tomatoes into small cubes, retaining the seeds and liquid pulp and place in a large mixing bowl
2. Using a box grater, grate the remaining one and half tomatoes into the bowl. Use the medium sized holes to get a fairly pulverized tomato. Toss the left over skins.

Chopped and grated tomatoes

3. Mince the clove of garlic and add it to the chopped and liquefied tomatoes.
4. Squeeze the lemon into the bowl with the tomatoes, garlic and lemon.
5. Add the 1 tsp of salt and about a 1 tsp of salt (3 pinches of salt) and add a few turns of coarsely ground pepper.
6. Mix well and let this sauce sit for at least 10 minutes, more time will only make it better. Ten minutes is about the time it should take the pasta to cook. We left our sauce for longer as we took a break to watch an episode of Parks and Recreation and let the chicken roast in the oven.
7. At the last moment, before adding the sauce to pasta, add the chopped parsley to the tomato sauce and stir to combine parsley and sauce.
8. Once the pasta (or spiralized zucchini) is cooked, add in the sauce to the pan with the cooked (and drained) pasta and toss to coat. If using actual pasta, you may want to add a few tablespoons of the cooking water to the tomato sauce. My sauce was very watery and did not need any extra liquid, I actually strained away a bit of liquid as I scooped the sauce onto the zucchini.

9. Toss the pasta and sauce until the pasta appear well coated. Serve the pasta onto plates and top with freshly grated Parmesan cheese.