Pasta with Raw Tomato Sauce

You readers think I haven’t been cooking.  Not true, I have been cooking but had no way to communicate with you.  I live in Comcast land.  Not only that, but we have a bundled service.  So I have no internet, phone, or TV when it fails.  I mentioned at the end of my last blog that we had a tremendous storm in Nashville Thursday night.  The electric company had everything back in a jiffy.  Today is Sunday and we are still chasing Comcast.  First it was reported by the Thursday Comcast guy that the outside stuff was damaged.  So we wait, we see Comcast trucks outside.  Friday, still no service, we call again.  The outside is fine; we think it is something inside your house, maybe we can get someone there on Tuesday.  Jim has finally had enough.  With 7 no shows for service, I think they owe me at this point.  When I am on the internet I am after them like a dog on a trail, so they turn Jim over to customer relations and they are supposed to show up today between 8 AM and 4 PM.  Want to take bets on whether they show?

Friday we had lunch out and tomato sandwiches for dinner.  We had picked up great tomatoes at the Lebanon Farmer’s Market.  I started a pot of vegetable broth in order to make Jim’s favorite Won Ton soup.  It’s on my blog, the blog I can’t access thanks to Comcast.  So I saw in the August issue of Bon Appétit pasta with raw tomato sauce.  It was delicious.  It serves 8, but is easily divided.

Ingredients:

¾ C EVOO

1 ½ T balsamic vinegar

1 ½ T red wine vinegar

4 ½ # plum tomatoes, halved, pulp discarded, flesh cut into ¾” pieces.  (I used heirloom tomatoes and wasn’t real particular about the ¾”business.)

¾ C (packed) fresh basil leaves, torn

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

1# fusilli (spiral-shaped pasta) (I used cup shaped spinach pasta)

Directions:

1.      Whisk ¾ C oil and both vinegars in a large bowl to blend.  Add chopped tomatoes.  Using a potato masher or your hands, slightly crush tomatoes to bruise and release juices. 

2.      Stir in basil and season to taste with salt and pepper. 

3.      Cover bowl and let tomatoes marinate at room temperature for 1 hour to allow flavors to develop.

4.      Cook pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water, stirring occasionally, until al dente. 

5.      Drain and add the pasta to the marinated tomato sauce. 

6.      Let pasta stand at room temperature, stirring occasionally, for 15 minutes to allow pasta to absorb flavors from sauce.  Very important step to get the pasta to soak up the sauce.   

7.      Season pasta to taste with salt and pepper and drizzle with more oil, if desired.  I had used about a teaspoon each of salt and pepper initially.  It did not need any more.  My tomatoes were so ripe and delicious that I also did not add more oil.