When I was in Mexico during my yin yoga training, I prepared a simple pasta sauce and got really nice compliments on it. A few days ago, one of my American friends who tried it, wrote me asking for the recipe. It's one of my mum's classics and even though I make this often, I had never considered adding this recipe to my blog before as I thought everyone can make a pasta sauce, but maybe not quite like this one ;-)
Ingredients Sauce: 4 people
-1 onion chopped in squares.
- 4 grated garlic cloves
- 1 big grated carrot
- 4 ripe tomatoes
- A few sun-dried tomatoes
- Two handfuls of basil leaves
- A handful of spinach leaves
- Mixed herbs
- 1 tsp paprika powder
- *Optional: 3 tbsp of organic Italian passata
Extras:
- Pasta of choice
- Bay leaves
- Vegetable of choice (I added mushrooms and asparagus on top)
Method:
-Chop onion, grate garlic and carrot and set aside.
-Place cold filtered water on a pot and add tomatoes in it along with a few bay leaves on medium heat and let it boil.
-Once the tomatoes skin starts to break, remove tomatoes from pot and place on a blender.
-Once the water has boiled, add past of choice and cooked according to instructions.
- In a pot, add a teaspoon of oil, sun-dried tomatoes and heat for a couple of minutes. Once oil is hot, add chopped onion and dried herbs. Fry for approx 5 minutes, then add grated garlic and stir. After this, when the onion is softer, add carrot and continue frying until both the carrot and onion soften up and almost blend together.
- Place this mixture onto the blender along with the previously boiled tomatoes, basil and spinach leaves. Blend. Add a little bit of salt and pepper and paprika. Grab a spoon and taste it!
* NOTE: You can choose to add passata or not! When I'm in a country where the tomatoes are super rich on flavour and colour, I wouldn't add a packed sauce, but if your sauce needs a little colour or extra boost of flavour, add a few spoons to taste =)
If you would like to add anything on top of the sauce, like I did, you can heat up some oil, add garlic, tarragon and then add mushrooms or vegetables of your choice . I normally add pine nuts and some vegan yeast on top too <3
Hope you like this recipe and enjoy it as much as my family and I do =)
