I find it very rewarding to flounce into my garden in the morning and pick some fresh veg to use in my dishes for the day. Today I found an abundance of tatsoi and ripe tomatoes, just like that, overnight! I often don’t feel like having meat in a dish but I have to have some form of protein or I get hangry! Protein not only keeps you full but also feeds your muscles. Fortunately protein comes in many shapes and forms! Many of which are alot easier on the body than meat! While I was picking the tomatoes I was admiring the different colours and shapes and it felt it absolutely necessary to chuck them all in a pot and make a tangy tomato & tatsoi pasta sauce. What a tasty meal, from vine to pasta bowl in 30 minutes.

Here’s how:

Pick all the juicy ripe tomatoes growing in the garden (Ive used yellow pear cherry tomatoes and red cherry tomatoes) or alternatively use the store bought tomatoes that are going squishy and busy trying to crawl their way out the fridge. Either will do nicely.

3 cups juicy ripe tomatoes. (I ended up with 3 cups in total roughly.)

1 red onion (high in quercetin, so they destroy free radicals, fight cancer and are anti inflammatory, anti fungal and anti bacterial- all in a pretty purple casing)

1tbsp olive oil for the bottom of pot and 1 tsp olive oil to drizzle in sauce while cooking.

pinch of himalayan sea salt and ground black pepper

pinch of cayenne pepper if you aren’t feeding this to kiddies

4 Tatsoi leaves.

Chop the red onion and brown gently in the olive oil on medium heat, olive oil has a low smoke point so high heat literally causes it to smoke! EEK! keep it llllow folks (and yes you can use coconut oil instead.)

Then chop up the delightfully colourful tomatoes and plonk them in the pot

Sprinkle the pepper, himalayan salt and cayenne pepper if you are using some. Cook over a gentle heat for 10 minutes roughly, take the potato masher (I love this part) and squash all the tomatoes down, pop em! Mix everything nicely so that all the flavours blend. Add the teaspoon of olive oil and then cook another 10 minutes till you see the tomatoes are nice and squishy and the sauce has started to thicken. Here is where I added some freshly picked tatsoi out the garden. I shredded it off the stalk and chucked it in and allowed the sauce to cook for another 3 minutes until the tatsoi softened a bit.

Serve the sauce over a bowl of pasta and add a dollop of smooth cottage cheese for extra protein. (I used ORGRAN brand rice and corn pasta penne.)

Enjoy!

Live wholesome