Slow-cooked tomato sauce with tagliatelle

My very productive tomato vines on the balcony, have persuaded me to cook a tomato dish again. Not that I have anything against tomatoes, quite the contrary. At the moment my vines save me quite a bit of shopping as tomatoes would always be on the shopping list. If you want to know more about my tomato growing ventures, also read yesterday's post TomatoTigerella – A love story.

So this time I decided to slow cook my sauce to make it really intense with tomato taste. I find that a tomato sauce should either be made very quickly or slow-cooked. This is how I made mine.

Ingredients

400 g tomatoes

2 garlic cloves

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp basil infused olive oil

20 g vegetarian pasta cheese

Fresh basil leaves

Ground nutmeg to taste

125 g buffalo mozzarella

250 g tagliatelle

Method

Chop the garlic finely and cook it in olive oil until soft. Also chop the tomatoes and add them to the pan. Simmer the sauce under lid for at least one hour by stirring occasionally. If the sauce gets too liquid, simmer also without the lid on.

Once you are happy with how the tomato taste has developed, add the basil oil, grated vegetarian pasta cheese, basil leaves and nutmeg. You can also add salt and pepper to taste.

Boil the tagliatelle until al dente. Serve the pasta with the sauce and torn mozzarella.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog

Tofu & tomato pasta sauce

I made this pasta sauce a while ago when I was in Finland, but I didn't get around posting it yet. I haven't posted many other pasta dishes lately either, so that needs to be corrected. On that note may I present you a simple recipe for a tomato pasta sauce with a bit more substance, and that substance is tofu. This sauce is very easy to make as I even cheated a bit and used a ready made tomato sauce this time instead of fresh tomatoes.

Ingredients

150g tofu

400g tomato sauce/pureed tomatoes

1 red pepper

1 red onion

1 garlic clove

Fresh chives

Fresh parsley

Ground black pepper

Salt

Vegetable oil

Oltermanni cheese (That's my favourite Finnish cheese that I used on that occasion, you can take your preferred pasta cheese)

Tagliatelle pasta (any other pasta will also do)

Method

Chop the onion and garlic finely. Also chop the pepper. Dice the tofu into very small dices and start the sauce by frying the tofu dices in a pan in vegetable oil. The tofu needs quite a while to fry with frequent stirring and turning. Once the tofu has reached a bouncy consistency and is golden brown, the chopped onion can be added to the pan.

Fry until the onion is glassy and then add the red pepper to the mix. Fry for further 10 minutes, then add the garlic and continue frying for a few minutes more. Finally pour the tomato sauce over the tofu and vegetables. Season the sauce with black pepper, salt, chives and parsley. Let it simmer for a few minutes and cook your pasta in the meanwhile.

Serve the pasta and sauce with some grated cheese and enjoy the pasta goodness!

Your VegHog

Tagliatelle with zucchini and asparagus

This is a simple and light pasta dish made with lovely fresh and green ingredients. It's perfect for a busy weekday as you can prepare everything within half an hour. You could also make a wine-free variation for kids and easily fool them into eating green veg as the dish looks quite funny.

Ingredients

Tagliatelle pasta

1 Zucchini

1 Bunch of asparagus

1 Onion

2 Cloves of garlic

Basil

1 Glass of white wine

Olive oil

Salt

Pepper

Mozzarella cheese

Chop the onion and garlic. Cut the asparagus into length of about 2-3cm. Shave zucchini slices with a cheese slicer and cut the long slices in half so that they resemble tagliatelle.

Heat olive oil in a pan and start by frying the onion and garlic. Add the zucchini and asparagus to the pan and stir at moderate heat. When the zucchini is starting to get translucent add a glass of white wine and let it evaporate.

Boil the pasta to an al dente state. Season the sauce with fresh basil leaves, salt and pepper and mix it with the pasta. For serving sprinkle grated mozzarella on top.