As I am mellowing I am finding the time and patience to do things in a more relaxed fashion. One of the things is to process the tomato crop hence the heading Nonna's (grandma's) passata (tomato sauce). I am not quite a purist yet as I don't skin the tomatoes, but I do take the pips out.
We have had a wonderful tomato crop this year, mainly "Early Girls" which came early and are enjoying it so much they are still producing. I remember when we went to Sydney and stayed with Brett and his Italian wife Rosalia her old mother used to make the passata every morning and in the evening the two daughters would call in and pick up a bowl of passata.
Very fascinating from a mathematics point of view that the fruit display rotational symmetry of order 2,3 and 4.
Now just a top up of fresh herbs - we have basil, sage, rosemary and thyme and a good steady boil up and we are good to go.
I used this on top of meatballs made by Duncan for a dinner party this weekend. A golfing mate had presented Duncan with 6 aged wines including a Bakano 1965. We checked on the internet - thinking maybe they were valuable - but the wines were dismissed as not enjoyable AND not worth anything. While not up to the standard of today's New Zealand wines, one or two of them were not too bad. I did 6 tapa courses - starting with smoked cheese and cocktail onions on toothpicks - very 1965, then smoked lamb on ciabatta with mint and basil pesto that Duncan had made. Many counted the mushrooms stuffed with chorizo sausage and cream cheese and then breadcrumbed as the highlight of the night. The meatballs and pasta - a small plate serving followed. Next was a crostini with Tarasamalata (creamy fish roe) with a tomato nipple. These were the the tomacchio that Duncan had grown (very small tomatoes), and by this stage of the night the gentlemen at the table were a bit giggly about this. We finished the tapa with a small serve of steak cubes and raw energy salad (beetroot - raw with carrot - YUM). I passed round a fresh salad of Shrimp amd avocado on a bed of salad greens to finish, and dessert was a brownie (made with courgette - but I wasn't telling them that) with blackberries and cream.
A great night was had by all - something a little bit different!
