-
1
Wash tomatoes and chop in half.
-
2
Cut semi-dried tomatoes.
-
3
Get your swimming goggles and snorkel!
-
4
Chop off both ends of onion, stand onion on one flat side and cut down the centre.
-
5
Lay sides flat, and slice length-wise four times, then width wise four times each half.
-
6
Now you can take your goggles off.
-
7
Cut root ends off garlic cloves, then with large fat knife (such as a cleaver) press hard down on clove.
-
8
The skin will come off very easily.
-
9
Then chop garlic into large chunks.
-
10
Chop red pepper into same size as onion, being careful to full deseed and cut off all white bits.
-
11
Invest in some food preparer's plastic gloves.
-
12
The kind that come attached to instruction sheet in some home hair colouring kits will do, too.
-
13
With gloves, slice green tip off of little red chilie.
-
14
Slice lengthwise, then with table knife, scrape seeds and white bits into garbage.
-
15
Chop into tiny bits.
-
16
Now you can take the gloves off.
-
17
Make sure not to touch your face (especially your eyes!)
-
18
with the gloves.
-
19
Heat some olive oil in large pan, a shallow dutch oven is great, over a medium high flame or medium high heat, and fry onions slowly until translucent.
-
20
Add peppers (red and chiie) for another five minutes.
-
21
Add herbs and a little more oil and reduce heat to medium low.
-
22
Now add the tomatoes and after you get a little bubbling, reduce heat again if needed and simmer, stirring occasionally for 1/2 hour.
-
23
It is also incredible cooked just till tomatoes are hot, ten minutes!
-
24
You can use more chilie, or no chilie, or dried chilie, and fresh oregano is even better if you can get it where you are.
-
25
Sometimes I mix and match things, using yellow baby tomatoes and orange peppers in the summer for the colour.
-
26
I also like a splash of Worcestershire (pronounces wooster, oo as is foot) sauce or some red wine or even white wine.
-
27
Even a splash of vodka can be nice, if you cook the sauce a very long time.
-
28
The longer you cook the tomatoes, the better for them they are, unlike many other vegetables (yes, okay, they are not really vegetables -- ).
-
29
Finally, there are some excellent alternatives to wheat pastas, including rice pasta, which is made especially for Mediterranean cooking, probably in any pasta aisle or health food aisle or store.
