And here’s what become of three of my luscious homegrown tomatoes…

Let’s call it “Tomato-fennel sauce with sprouted pasta and broccoli”. I basically made it up from ingredients gathered for this purpose as I went along. First I sauteed in olive oil some minced red onion (I bought these suckers pre-cut = no more tears!), ginger and garlic, then added in some dried oregano, rosemary, coriander and red chili flakes. Once these started to brown and smell amazing I added in one large fennel bulb which had been sliced and roughly chopped. I let this cook for about 5 minutes, splashing in some rice wine vinegar, and then some lemon juice when the pan would get dry. Once the fennel started to soften I added in the three biggest tomatoes, chopped into large chunks. After a couple minutes I added one large portabello mushroom which had been diced. I left this cook and simmer in it’s own juices until it started to thicken up a bit, and mixed in some torn basil leaves right at the end.

While all of that was going on I’d also been steaming some broccoli and cooking the pasta, Food For Life’s ‘Ezekiel 4:9 Organic Sprouted Grain Pasta (fettuccine). Everything was mixed together in a large bowl, and allowed to meld with some more fresh basil leaves before serving.

It came out great. I realize the tomatoes don’t really look like they were featured here, but the sauce came out just right, exactly as I had intended for it to taste (yea me!). I probably should have taken the time to peel the tomatoes first because the skins came off on their own in the sauce, but that was just as well (lots of nutrients in there). I’d recently read the new information about how the excellent health benefits of tomatoes and broccoli are compounded if you eat them together, so using those two together was the inspiration behind this.

1. Roasted broccoli, fennel, apple & tempeh
2. Quinoa-corn pasta with broccoli, asparagus & tofu
3. Steamed broccoli with fennel
4. Quick and yummy veggie pasta at home
5. Green power pesto and black pasta