Kitchen Pen Pals: Tomato, chilli, caper and olive pasta

i am one up on Lauren this week as I have the worst internet connection in the world (debatable though, i'm sure)

whilst i was making the asparagus pasta and because Lauren had said how much she enjoyed making it, i thought we could do another type of pasta sauce as recipe 2.5...

as i explained to her, once you can make a basic creamy and a basic tomato based sauce, you are pretty set for making gastronomic wonders. you can chuck whatever you feel like into the sauce as long as you have the basics down.

so recipe and method are as follows:

1 tin chopped tomatoes

1 small onion - chopped

1 fresh chilli - chopped (optional)

1 tablespoon capers - chopped (optional)

1/2 cup chopped calamata olives

olive oil

salt and pepper

1 teaspoon brown sugar

zest of 1/2 lemon

2 sprigs of rosemary

half a handful of fresh basil leaves

(we survive on a lot of tinned goods in zimbabwe)

alrighty so like before heat oil and fry onions until soft and golden. add tinned tomatoes, chilli (if you want), sugar, lemon zest and sprigs of rosemary and simmer for 15 minutes

 

i couldn't find fresh chillies here but we have these dried ones in our kitchen...

 

we also don't have rosemary at the moment but we have hobos (zim word for loads) of marjoram. you can use any 'hard' herb for this: marjoram, oregano, thyme or rosemary.

add olives and capers (if you want - we certainly can't get those here so i just left them out) 

also couldn't get hold of calamata olives so used these manzanilla ones.

 

simmer for 2 minutes, season with black pepper and salt but be cautious if you have used capers as they are very salty and you may not even need it. remove rosemary sprigs and add chopped fresh basil

 

easily one of my most favourite meals.