When one thinks of Italian food, usually it evokes a image of food floating in tomato sauce, huge bowls of spaghetti and meatballs, sauce everywhere! Pots of sauce cooking for hours over low heat, bubbling away like molten lava. There is even a word for it in Italian ” pippare”, that slow, low heat cooking which transforms food. One of my favorite recipes to make which uses this slow cooking method is a great summer recipe. Salsa Genovese is a specialty from Naples, not Genova as the name implies.
Pork ribs are slowly simmmered in an onion rich tomato sauce creating a pork-infused tomato sauce for pasta and fall off the bone tender ribs for your main course! What’s not to love.
I have been having a lot of fun with Tomato Jam, the foto below is Mark Bittman’s version with ginger and chili, which is the first time I saw it.
Last year, my internet friend from Sicily sent me a simpler version to use on ricotta or cheeses, more of a candied tomato preserve. They looks like small jewels served on the cheese. No chili pepper or ginger, I like both. But in the Bittman version the tomato is a vehicle for the other flavors which step up front in the mouth.
There is really no need for me to create a new blog post on tomatoes- I think when the tomatoes come into season all at once we are all looking for new ways to deal with them.
Last year, I jumped in to the Summer Food Fest and gathered together tons of recipes including a Green Tomato Pasta sauce. This year with the odd summer we have been having, there will be tons of green tomatoes.
So here are the other Summer Food Fest merry-makers!
stop by the sites- get inspired- leave a note- or a link to what you are making.
Facciamo Festa- Let’s Party
Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef: Heirloom Tomato Tart with Parmesan Crust
Nicole at Pinch My Salt: What to do with slow-roasted tomatoes
Alison at Food2: Heirloom tomatoes
The FN Dish: Tyler’s Ultimate Tomato Salads
Margaret at A Way to Garden: More than one way to ripen a tomato
Gilded Fork: Celebrating summer lusciousness with a tomato dossier and recipes
Diane and Todd at White on Rice Couple: Sun-dried tomatoes (actually made in the sun!)
Paige at The Sister Project: 3 substantial, healthy, vegetarian tomatoey main dishes
Liz at the Cooking Channel: Easy Tomato Tart
Kelly at Just a Taste: Tomato Jam
Alexis at Food Network UK: The seven deadly tomato sins
Michelle at Healthy Eats: Top 10 Things to Do With Tomatoes
Marilyn at Simmer Till Done: Cherry Tomato and Blue Cheese Beignets
Alana at Eating From the Ground Up: Roasted Green Salsa (green zebras and tomatillos), and how late August makes her hurt for New Mexico
Tigress in a Pickle: Over 50 ways to preserve tomatoes in jars
Cate at Sweetnicks: A Loaded Bowl (filled with brown rice, Jersey fresh tomatoes, buttery avocados and more deliciousness)
Caron at San Diego Foodstuff: Chunky Garden Gazpacho with Flowered Corn Tortillas
Melissa Clark’s Tomatoes and Pink Greens