Fresh Tomato Sauce

My friend Molly (not to be confused with my other friend Molly) is friends with a local farmer. She gets a veggie box every week, which allows farmers to sell their crop directly to a consumer. Molly gets a lot of tomatoes, but she won't eat them raw, and so those tomatoes get passed on to me. I love tomatoes, and the ones in the veggie box are particularly juicy and sweet. I felt I should give this wealth a proper treatment, one that Molly could appreciate. Tonight was my first time making a tomato sauce.

These are the tomatoes. I love the variety: every permutation of size and color is present.

We paired the tomatoes with crimini, shallots, a pepper, garlic, salt, black pepper, bay leaf, and wine. Everything simmered for about three hours, the latter part of which we put in Italian sausage and fresh basil.

The final result: penne with fresh tomato sauce and parmesan cheese. It was amazing. It took preparation and patience, but was not difficult. The pleasure of the fresh ingredients made the process fun. Even with an amateur effort, I felt a lot of pride in a dish that I would normally pour from a jar.

You can do a lot with low-hanging fruit if you try.