Pasta with Fresh Tomato Sauce

Past weekend we went to Apple picking for the very first time. I'm not a big fan of apples and apple picking never appealed to me that much. But I wanted to do something fun with the kids on the weekend and found a pick your own apple farm very close to my sister's home. We didn't pick too many apples since it started to drizzle and rain and the kids started getting restless. They actually had fun playing in the hay bale maze for a little bit before it started to rain harder.

You must be wondering, why the talk about apples when the dish here is made with tomatoes. As I said we didn't pick too many apples, but the farm also has a fresh produce market and they had colorful cherry tomatoes that I picked up. Since it is almost the end of summer and finding fresh, juicy tomatoes is going to be difficult, I couldn't resist from buying them.

I found this recipe for fresh tomato sauce with pasta in Costco connection cookbook. The sauce is a no-cook one and uses the fresh tomatoes and their juices to the maximum. So the only requirement for this dish is to use fresh juicy tomatoes and you will have your meal ready in less than 30 minutes.

Ingredients:

Pasta - 1 lb. (I made the dish with buccatoni, but the original dish used bow tie pasta)

Cherry/ Grape Tomatoes - 2lbs.

Extra Virgin Oil - 3tbsp
Red chili flakes - 1tsp (adjust as per taste)
Garlic cloves - 2~3, finely minced
Basil leaves - ¼cup
Balsamic vinegar - 1tbsp (optional)
Parmesan cheese - ½cup
Salt & Pepper - to taste

Method:

• Half the tomatoes and squeeze them to get the juice out. Add extra virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar, red chili flakes, garlic cloves, basil leaves, salt & pepper. Mix well and set aside for at least 15 minutes for the flavors to mingle.
• Cook the pasta as per package instructions. Drain and add the hot pasta to the tomato sauce along with the parmesan cheese. Serve right away or at room temperature.

Linking this to Valli's 'Cooking from Cookbook Challenge: August -- Week 5'.