I spent a week in Monteagle enjoying teaching cooking classes plus porch visits with good friends, and came home to a garden FULL of tomatoes. This has never happened – the squirrels must be away on vacation. We have an abundance of beautiful grape and cherry tomatoes and I feel like the luckiest person in the world.
We are experimenting with as many fabulous recipes as we can create and loving every minute of it. So far, there have been lots of salads and salsas, soups and garnishes, omelets and appetizers – but the latest greatest invention is our new summer sauce. In fact with the availability of good cherry tomatoes in the grocery even in the winter, I’m betting this will be an all year favorite sauce. First we tried it on grilled chicken – not my husband’s favorite dish. He says chicken makes him feel like he’s been put on an involuntary diet. This lovely little sauce took that plain chicken breast over the top, enough so that he actually requested the menu again. Now I know that there should not be one thing necessary to make people like steak a bit more, but what the heck – this sauce was so fresh and delicious, that leftovers weren’t even a vague possibility.
It’s ridiculously simple- I threw about two cups of fresh cherry and grape tomatoes – red, yellow and green in a saucepan. To that I added 2 cloves minced garlic, a pinch of red pepper flakes and about 1/3 cup each of water, balsamic vinegar, and sugar. It cooked on a slow simmer till the tomatoes burst and it was a bit syrupy. That’s it – done.
And this Summer Sauce is good on everything – pasta, omelets, beef, seafood, pork, chicken – you’ll probably discover even more uses if you can keep it around long enough to experiment. Let me know, because I don’t think I’ll ever see a bit leftover in our house!
Summer Sauce for Everything (Printable Recipe)
Ingredients
2 cups cheery and/or grape tomatoes
2 cloves minced garlic
1/3 cup water
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
pinch of red pepper flakes
1/3 tsp salt (or to taste)
Directions
In a small saucepan bring all ingredients to a boil.
Reduce heat and simmer for about 15 minutes until tomatoes burst and liquid becomes thick and syrupy.
Serve warm or at room temperature.
Good with meat, poultry, seafood, pasta – you name it!
Newschannel 5’s Talk of the Town invited me to make Butterbean and Grilled Corn Salad on July 8th. Click this link to see this segment.
