Fabulicious!: Teresa's Italian Family Cookbook (4 page)

One of the cornerstones of Italian cooking is a good red sauce. And you can’t get a good red sauce without breaking up the tomatoes because you need the smaller
pieces to melt into the sauce. If you’re not using fresh, use
whole
canned tomatoes (imported Italian plum tomatoes are best). Hold the can over your pan, reach in carefully, and squish the tomatoes into chunks as they slide out through your fingers. You want the pieces to be the size of large stuffed olives. And go ahead and pour the juices from the can in there as well.

As so many of you have written me and attested—I already knew this because I have four kids and don’t work out—if you eat home-cooked, fresh, authentic Italian food, you can have your pasta and your skinny jeans, too. It’s a natural diet with lots of fresh veggies, fish, light sauces, and our friend, olive oil. But since this book is a family cookbook, and growing kids shouldn’t be on a calorie- or fat-restricted diet (and since I have a “no obsessing about your food” rule), I’m not including the complete nutritional information in this book. I try to cook as healthfully as possible,
but not all of the recipes I’m giving you are meant for weight loss; some are once-in-awhile, let-loose celebration dishes.

But don’t worry, more than half of the recipes here are, in fact, “skinny.” I have marked them with this pretty icon:
. And whenever I can, I give you substitutions to make a recipe “skinny,” so look for the
sidebars, too!

And since so many of us are multi-tasking, working maniacs, in addition to giving you a whole chapter of quick-and-easy meals, I’ve also marked all “quick” recipes that can be on the table in 30 minutes or less with this icon:
.

With a good base sauce, you can make a million variations. I gave you one—The Quickie Tomato Sauce—in
Skinny Italian,
and since it’s so yummy and used so many times in this book, I’m gonna give it to you again. I’m also giving you a new base sauce that’s a little hotter. The Quickie is a sweet sauce; Snappy Red Sauce is spicier. Feel free to interchange them in any of the recipes to match your mood. If you want to add more basil or oregano to either one, be my guest, but keep in mind that those flavorings are usually in the finished dish, too, so you could unintentionally reach herb overload.

The Quickie Tomato Sauce

Makes about 3½ cups, enough for 1 pound of pasta

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

1 (28-ounce) can imported whole Italian plum tomatoes, broken up with their juices

¼ cup tomato paste

2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil

1.
Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the tomatoes and their juices and the tomato paste. Bring just to a boil.

2.
Reduce the heat to medium-low and add the basil. Simmer to blend the flavors, about 10 minutes. The End.

Snappy Red Sauce

Makes about 3½ cups, enough for 1 pound of pasta

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

1 small onion, chopped

¼ teaspoon salt

2 garlic cloves, minced

½ teaspoon red pepper flakes

1 (28-ounce) can crushed tomatoes in thick purée

3 tablespoons chopped fresh Italian parsley

1.
Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and salt. (A little salt brings out the onion flavor.) Cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion is translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and red pepper flakes and stir until the garlic is fragrant, about 1 minute.

2.
Stir in the tomatoes with their purée and the parsley and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low. Cook at a brisk simmer, stirring occasionally, until slightly reduced, about 5 minutes. Serve hot as a pasta sauce.

Audriana’s Pesto