Tin of Tomatoes, Three Ways

Oh Henry, my cooking partner

There comes a time when one simply must go to the grocery store. For me that time was this past Monday. As Henry and I peered sullenly into the refrigerator, scrounging past one sad tamale left from the Christmas bounty, a half container of salsa and some eggs, I came to the realization that I had MacGyvered through all of my food and must start anew.

But here’s the thing. I’m a single gal, with a full time job, and a full time dog, and the idea of cooking both lunch and dinner from scratch every day is just too daunting a feat, even for me. Compound this with the fact that I’m not really keen on leftovers and, well, I’m left pouting and trying to figure some way to eat for the week.

I’m always searching for meals that can be repurposed into new dishes. Rice and beans are the classic for this; cooked separately and repackaged through the week into a veritable multi-cultural feast - huevos rancheros, fried rice, soups, you name it. But after a while, you’ve run through all the iterations and you start craving something different. This week I was thinking of baked pasta, warm to ward of the late spring chill, but with a lighter sauce and delicately tangled with fresh mozzarella and basil. And so I turned to my stand by sauce - Marcella Hazan’s tomotoes with onion and butter.

For a sauce as easy to make as this, it’s rather difficult to describe. It takes a tin of tomatoes, an onion cut in half, some butter and salt, and lets loose a riot of tomato flavor; alternately sweet and acidic, rich from the butter and so full of tomatoey flavor its uncanny that it comes from a can. Though it’s nearly perfect as is, I simply cannot have tomato sauce without garlic, so I throw in some whole, peeled cloves for good measure. Ms. Hazan’s recipe calls for the sauce to be simmered over medium-low heat for 45 minutes and occassionally stirred, which in my house simply doesn’t work as my pup requires a long, long walk every evening else he destroy my house. So instead, I threw all the ingredients together, brought it to a simmer, added half a can of water for good measure, then pushed it into a 300-degree oven and left it there until we got back from our hike. It tasted just as good as the stove-top variety.

The beauty of this dish is that this sauce, because of its simplicity, and with just a bit of prep work, becomes three totally different, but equally delicious, meals. After a long and slow simmer, then a quick pass with an immersion blender (just to mash up the big chunks) half the sauce found a home in a quick pasta. Then I strained the other half and reserved the thin sauce as a light and delicious tomato soup that I ate for lunch the next day topped with a scattering of basil and goat cheese. The mash left in the strainer is full of slow braised onion and garlic and tomato pulp, a sort of intense tomato jam that’s more savory than sweet and gorgeous on a piece of toast with a fried egg or in a sandwich with mozzarella and basil.

Three meals out of one tin of tomatoes? That’s something I won’t pout over.

Tomato Sauce with Onion and Butter
Adapted from Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, by Marcella Hazan

2 cups whole, peeled, canned tomatoes, chopped, with their juices (about one 28-oz.can)
1 cup water* (I added this because I put it in the oven and was afraid it might evaporate more liquid than I wanted. I wouldn’t add it on the stove-top variety)
5 Tbsp. unsalted butter (I used 3 tablespoons - 5 just seems so, I don’t know, excessive)
1 medium yellow onion, peeled and cut in half
5 garlic cloves, crushed and peeled* (Completely discretionary, but in my mind, essential)
Salt, to taste

Preheat oven to 300-degrees. Combine the tomatoes, their juices, water, the butter, the onion halves and garlic in an oven-proof medium saucepan. Add a pinch or two of salt. Place over medium heat and bring to a simmer. Once it comes to simmer, give it a good stir, mashing any large pieces, then place in the oven. Cook for at least an hour or until the sauce has thickened and the onions are soft. Taste and salt as needed.

Discard the onion (I like to put this on toast too, or save and cook with scrambled eggs), run an immersion blender through the sauce to break up the biggest pieces (or you can use a masher for this). Use half the sauce for dressing pasta or risotto, then strain and reserve the remaining liquid. Scrape the mash left in the strainer and reserve for toast.

Yield: Enough sauce for about 1/2 pound of pasta, or 2 servings; 2 cups of soup; and enough tomato jam for 2 servings.

**I’ve been listening to alot of Gonzales recently, thanks to the fact that my computer crashed and my ipod died within moments of each other and this was the only music I had transferred over to my iPhone. That being said, it’s pretty amazing stuff here, and though I didn’t use Oregano in this dish, it was a great standby.