One of our favorite events every summer is The Sylvia Center’s Farm-to-Table dinner, hosted by Great Performances in the fields of Katchkie Farm in Kinderhook, N.Y. The mission of The Sylvia Center is to inspire young people and their families to eat well through hands-on learning experiences on the farm and in the kitchen. Julie Cerny, farm education director and garden manager at The Sylvia Center, offers us recipes the teenagers are learning to make.
Sometimes, if I listen very very closely, I feel like I can hear tomatoes ripening. During late summer, the amount ready to be harvested and gobbled up in the garden can be tremendous…and overwhelming. So sometimes, we need to get back to basics. This simple tomato sauce is transformative — it allows the tomatoes do the talking, and you can taste each ray of sunshine they absorbed coating your pasta of choice. We chose farfalle pasta for several reasons, the preeminent being the immediate giggle that arrives from our students after saying it, followed closely by how the sauce nestles into its nooks and lastly, how the shape reminds us the butterflies fluttering across blooming meadows. If you’re still dazed with the onslaught of unremitting zucchini, whip out a spiralizer or mandolin and this sauce will pair perfectly with zoodles too. Make it your own, but always make sure you let the tomatoes talk—they’ve got a lot to say.
Pasta with Cherry Tomato Sauce
Serves 4
Ingredients for the pasta:
4 cups farfalle or rotini pasta
½ cup Parmesan cheese
Ingredients for the sauce:
Yield: About 4 cups sauce
4 pounds tomatoes (cherry, heirloom, whatever you or your farmer has!)
¼ cup olive oil
Small onion
2 to 3 small cloves of garlic
1/2 teaspoon salt plus more to taste
Slivers of fresh basil, to finish
1. Chop onion in small dice and mince garlic.
2. Heat the olive oil in a pot over medium heat. Sauté onion and garlic. Add the tomatoes split in half and simmer for about 15 minutes.
3. Add the basil and adjust seasoning with salt and pepper.
4. Cook your favorite shape of pasta in salted water (1 lb of pasta in 1 gal of water) to an al dente consistency and toss in the pan with a desired amount of sauce. Coat well adding some of the boiling water if too dry. Top with Parmesan cheese. Serve hot.