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20 Minute Cherry Tomato Pasta
Ingredients
- 10 oz Cherry Tomato Pint sliced in halves
- 1/2 lb pasta any long pasta like fettucine, spaghetti, etc.
- 2 cloves of garlic sliced
- olive oil
Instructions
- In a large pot, bring water to a boil. While water is working on the boiling, slice your tomatoes and garlic.
- When water comes to a boil, add salt, and then add your pasta.
- In a sautee pan with tall sides, add olive oil. When it warms up, add sliced garlic and let cook for a few seconds.
- Then add tomatoes and let soften. You can use your spoon to mash up some as they soften to create more "sauce"
- Add a little pasta water to the tomatoes to help soften and create a sauce.
- Continue to cook tomatoes on a medium low flame. When the pasta is ready, use tongs to directly add it to the tomato sauce. The extra water will continue to build the sauce.
- Finish cooking the pasta for a few more minutes and top off with some basil if you have it on hand. Serve with pecorino romano cheese and happy eating !
Video
Memories
When I was younger, my father and I had an obsession with cooking shows, which in hindsight is probably where my love of food cooking videos came from. My dad had attended culinary school before my mother had gotten pregnant. Then he quickly shifted careers to plumbing because he had a family to provide for. Nevertheless, his love for cooking remained, and very early on I knew terms like mise en place, roux, and “golden brown” so whenever there was an interesting recipe we would watch together, we would write it down and hope to eventually try it.
Typically, however, we never had the ingredients and would have to save it for another day, which essentially meant we would not make it. One day, circa 2008 we were watching PBS and it was after an episode of Lidia Bastianich whom we loved – tutta a tavola a mangiare! – and this episode came on of “Just Cook It” with Sam the Cooking Guy. My dad and I were hooked. The show was funny, food looked delicious, and the meals seemed quick and easy.
The Inspo
On the episode he made this roasted cherry tomato pasta and my dad and I were thoroughly intrigued. I got up and went to the kitchen and we just so happened to have cherry tomatoes. We made the recipe together and we were stunned. Here we are, avid pasta eaters, constantly making either pomodoro scacchiata and burning ourselves with hot tomato skins. Or better yet sweating over a simmering huge pot of sauce, and then this easy peasy pasta came along.
And that is where the inspiration for this recipe came from. While the Cooking Guy roasted the cherry tomatoes, I have taken it one step lazier. Lowe and Behold the 20 Minute Cherry Tomato Pasta. I decided to just flash fry them and then let them cook through with some pasta water. It is just as quick and just as delicious. There are certain flavors that just evoke memories in people, and for me this is one of them. It immediately transports me to my teenage years, sitting on the sofa, eating and laughing with my dad.
It is my hope that somewhere along this blog you find a recipe to share with a loved one and create the same kind of memory. Now if it is this Cherry Tomato Pasta – that would make it 10x sweeter.
