Eggs Poached in My Best Ever Homemade Tomato Sauce

My Best Ever Homemade Tomato Sauce

This is the tale of  4 yummy things:

Homemade Tomato Sauce
Cheesy Sodabread
Poached eggs
Basil olive oil

I've been thinking about eggs for dinner all week, but my husband is not such a fan. So I held off until he left for a business trip today, when I unfolded my plan. Eggs poached on homemade tomato sauce have long appealed to me, but only today did I actually get off my behind and make them. This dinner is ridiculously easy but rams home how good ingredients can result in the tastiest food.

Having bought a sizable quantity of San Marzano tomatoes last weekend I decided the moment was right to make a batch of tomato sauce. My 3 year old was (sort of) resting on the couch after lunch, so I set to work. I don't have a standard method of making tomato sauce, in fact we don't often eat it in this house. When I was pregnant with my second child the mere smell of store bought tomato sauce gave me instant nausea. To this day I still dislike most store bought tomato sauces but homemade is a different matter. Nevertheless, I knew it needed to be good, so I opened my "Jamie's Dinners" for advice.

Simply using garlic, tomatoes and a little of my new favorite ingredient; O&Co basil olive oil (Thanks Kirsty!) I made a simply delicious tomato sauce. If you can get your hands on some of this olive oil, buy it! It's subtle and yet amazing in it's ability to enhance the flavor of all sorts of dishes. I've used it in dressings, with my pea puree, and tonight, in the absence of fresh basil, it infused my sauce with an extra richness and extra something yummy. That said, fresh basil and good extra virgin olive oil would make a perfect substitute in this or any other recipe.

My Best Ever Homemade Tomato Sauce

Eggs poached in Homemade Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

6 garlic cloves, finely chopped or minced

3 large (28oz) cans of whole tomatoes (the best you can get; I used San Marzano) Do not break up the tomatoes until after the sauce is cooked. The tomato seeds may make the sauce bitter; yuck, I learned from experience in the past.

2 teaspoons olive oil (I used basil olive oil)

salt and pepper to taste (Go easy on the salt; your tomatoes may already be quite salty)

To finish:

1 tablespoon basil olive oil

2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar 

Directions

1. Heat the olive oil in a large pan on medium and add the garlic.
2. Cook gently for approx 3 minutes then add the tomatoes
3. Cover and simmer the sauce for approx 30 minutes
4. Turn the heat off and glug in the basil olive oil (or chopped basil leaves and olive oil) and balsamic vinegar. 
5. Gently break up the tomatoes with the back of a spoon or a potato masher

To make the poached eggs, simply crack the eggs in a small bowl then gently place in the sauce. Cover and cook on a medium heat for approx 5 minutes.

I served mine on top of Cheesy Sodabread Rolls. I thought it was simply delicious and it went down pretty well with the 5 and under crowd. The only objection was a yolk, but we worked around that!

Enjoy the sauce endlessly with pasta, fish, poached eggs, or cook your sausages in it.

Cheesy Sodabread recipe is next in line for the posting.

Kat's "in 5 minutes flat" meals...

Leftover Fritatta



It's been a rough week here, hence the radio silence from kat ate that. I'm knee deep in a stroppy toddler and an intense preschooler. Both have been challenging their Mummy beyond my capacities this week, not helped by my husband being out of town and some other perfect storm circumstances.

Nevertheless, we still haven't eaten junk food or prepackaged dinners or even eaten out. So, I thought, therein lies my blog topic. I've been pondering for some time, how to write about the meals that I pull together in a snap. Lets face it, there are some days when we just don't have the time or inclination to plan and prepare earlier in the day. So I thought it might be interesting to start a series of my "in 5 minutes flat" meals. This is not rocket science, but we all run out of ideas sometimes so I thought putting some of this down might help both me and any readers in a similar position.

My typical week of meals involves, maybe, 3 complete "from scratch" meals, and the rest of the week I will use some of the leftovers as a base for a different meal, make one of my "in 5 minutes flat" meals or defrost a tasty something I've made a few weeks before.

I tend to cook as though I'm feeding a family of 8; when I roast up vegetables I will fill my (tiny) oven to the brim and use the leftover vegetables the following lunch or evening for something. Same for any meat, then I'll chop up the leftovers in any number of ways the following night. I generally cook extra rice or other grains when I make them and use them the next day in some way.

So today I'm offering a couple of my most trusty "go to" meals; Tortilla Pizza and Leftovers Fritatta. The "pizza" below was served with edamame before as I had no suitable vegetables at the ready. My fritatta was composed of leftover potato, broccoli and a few last crumbles of low fat feta. Anything goes!

I'm somewhat embarrassed to write these up as a recipe, but here goes. Feel free to chime in with your thoughts and ideas. I'm all ears!

Tortilla Pizza



Tortilla Pizza is always well received by the munchkins



Ingredients

Wholewheat tortillas (or flatbread, naan bread or pitta bread)

Pizza sauce (I frequently use pesto, but have been known to use bruschetta topping, tapenade, or whatever I have left in the fridge needing used)

Cheese (I have used fresh mozzarella, goats cheese, feta, cheddar, whatever I have)

leftover veg (roasted broccoli, corn, zucchini)

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F
2. Assemble the "pizzas" on a baking sheet
3. Cook for approx 8-10 minutes until crispy on the bottom.

If I have no suitable leftover vegetables I will serve either carrot sticks or edamame as an appetizer.

All good.

Leftovers Fritatta

Serves 4

Ingredients

4-5 eggs
1/4 cup of low fat or non fat greek yogurt or low fat sour cream
salt and pepper
2 cups leftovers (vegetables, potatoes, cooked meat)
1/4 cup feta cheese or cheese of your choice
chopped herbs of your choice

Directions

1. Beat the eggs and yogurt until combined well and season
2. Stir in the other ingredients
3. Preheat a small ovenproof skillet on medium and add a little oil
4. Pour in the egg mixture and move around in the pan for a few minutes until the fritatta starts to set
5. When the fritatta is well cooked on the bottom transfer the skillet to the broiler and broil until the top of the fritatta is fully cooked also.
6. Serve with a salad or any other leftover vegetables

Enjoy!