Facebook is dangerous. I was fully on track to have a plain tomato with salt as a snack, when a recipe - complete with mouth-watering photograph - for tomato-basil-cream sauce pasta floated across my screen. See that recipe here.
As delicious as it looked, I needed to change things: I didn't want actual pasta at 10:30 PM, for starts. I have real cream, not vegan. I had dried tomatoes in my pantry, but no tomato paste. Here's what I did instead:
I heated up a teaspoon of oil in a small saucepan, and sautéed about 3/4 teaspoon frozen minced garlic from last year's garden. Stirred in maybe a half cup of heavy cream. Added about a tablespoon of ground dried tomatoes (also last year's; I dehydrated them then pulverized them in my dry blender). Added a tablespoon of brewer's yeast and a pinch of salt. Let it simmer about five minutes, then let it rest for about 20 while I did something else.
I sautéed half an onion and a couple cups of diced zucchini with a spritz of oil spray in a skillet. Once those were soft and translucent, I added a cup of diced fresh tomatoes and about 1/4 c. chopped basil. (I already had all this in the fridge from meal prep the day before, so it came together really quickly.)
Once it was all hot, I stirred in my sauce, added a bit more salt, pepper and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil for flavor, and I had a low-carb late night snack that I could feel good about and tasted like it had come in fresh from a kitchen garden in Tuscany.
I thought about formatting it up as a 'real' recipe, but it was improvised from the start; telling it as a story just feels right.
And now… off to slumberland.
