My colleague Luci Sheehan is what you could call our roving farmers market reporter. She lives in Colorado, in Boulder, where there’s a terrific farmers market. Luci goes there regularly. And she reports back to us the tomatoes there are fabulous right now. “I can’t get enough!” Luci says, ticking off the heirloom and cherry tomatoes in particular.
Which brings me to my point: Now is an excellent time to take advantage of the gorgeously ripe tomatoes overflowing the bins at your local farmers market and grocery store.
A perfect way to put those tomatoes to use is to prepare a fresh, uncooked tomato sauce for pasta. It’s quicker to make than a cooked sauce.
Our recipe for fresh tomato sauce comes to us courtesy of our friends at the Viking Cooking School. It uses fresh mozzarella. And it takes advantage of another product currently at its seasonal peak: basil.
The recipe calls for farfalle pasta, also known as butterflies or bow ties because of their shape. But you can use any pasta.
If you don’t have basil oil to drizzle atop the pasta, you could just use a good extra virgin olive oil and some freshly chopped basil.
Finish the dish with some freshly grated Parmesan cheese.
Bon appétit,
Claude S. Weiller
Vice President of Sales & Marketing
California Olive Ranch
