Pomodoro Tutti……….from Mimi’s cucina

Serves 4-6

7 Tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 Medium Red Onion – Diced
1 28oz Can Crushed Tomatoes
Salt to Taste
8 Grinds Black Pepper, or to taste
1 Tablespoon Dried Basil
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In a large sauté pan over medium high heat:
Heat olive oil. Add onion – reduce heat to medium and sauté for 8 minutes. (Onions should be golden in color – so reduce heat if needed) Add tomatoes, salt and pepper and dried basil, simmer for 20 minutes.

Before beginning, put pasta water on to boil. Hold at simmer until ready to drop the pasta into water. Raise to the boiling point and add a good handful of salt. Time this step so that pasta and sauce are ready at the same time. Reserve a cup of pasta water. Drain pasta. Put pasta pan back onto low heat and put a couple of ladles of sauce in bottom of pan. Add pasta and remaining sauce. Toss to coat. Pasta will absorb sauce and be soooo tasty. Add some of the reserved liquid to loosen the pasta.

Serve with fresh parmigiano and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.

Simple Tomato Sauce (Robin B.)

This recipe is from an America's Test Kitchen cookbook. We love the flavor, it can be frozen also. This is super fast. I also have taken little spoons of tomato paste from a 6 oz. can and frozen them to have on hand for this recipe.

1 (28oz.) can diced tomatoes
4 medium garlic cloves, minced (I use the pre-minced that is sold in a jar.)
1 Tbsp. tomato paste
1 tsp. olive oil
1/8 tsp. red pepper flakes
1 Tbsp. minced fresh basil leaves (I used dried.)
salt and ground black pepper (I only used pepper.)
Pulse the tomatoes in a food processor until mostly smooth (I used my blender). Cook the garlic, tomato paste, oil and pepper flakes in a medium saucepan over medium heat until the tomato paste begins to brown, about 2 minutes. (I do this until it's just really hot, the paste doesn't seem to "brown" to me.) Stir in the pureed tomatoes and cook until the sauce is thickened, about 20 minutes. Stir in the basil and salt and pepper to taste.

Broccoli Pasta Salad (Robin B.)

1 head broccoli, raw, cut up
1 lb. pasta, cooked and rinsed in cold water, then drained
1/4 cup red onion, chopped
10 strips of bacon cooked and crumbled
1/2 cup Cheddar cheese
1/2 cup cashews or almonds
Mix all of this together and then top with dressing.

Dressing (mix these together):
2 Tbsp. sugar
1/3 cup balsamic dressing
1 package dry Italian dressing mix