Easy tomato sauce

Part of my classroom program is to introduce my students to cooking. I see it as a life skill that all people need to learn, and throughout the year, food and cooking will be integrated with all subjects in the curriculum.

This week, we used the beautiful fresh tomatoes of Ontario to create a simple tomato sauce for pasta. The children each washed and chopped a tomato to add to the pot. They stirred the sauce and grated the cheese. We cooked some pasta and served it with freshly grated Italian parmesean cheese. Ms. Mantello, who is Italian, said our tomato sauce was delicious!

Simple Pasta Sauce (for about 450g package of spaghetti)

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 or 2 cloves garlic, sliced

4 large or 8 small tomatoes. chopped

1/2 teaspoon salt,or to taste

1 teaspoon sugar,or to taste

* In a large frying pan, on medium heat, add the olive oil and garlic and cook the garlic until it starts to turn golden (but be careful not to burn the garlic). You may choose to remove the garlic pieces now or leave them in the sauce. Add the tomatoes and let cook for at least 15 minutes. You can cook it for an hour or more to reduce the liquid in the sauce. At salt and sugar to taste.

Serve the tomato sauce on hot, cooked pasta with a generous sprinkle of freshly grated parmesean cheese.

Fruit clafoutis

Because I love baking pies and I don't always have time to mix pastry dough, I've been experimenting with a classic French recipe called a "clafoutis". Traditionally, this dessert is made with fresh cherries, but I have found it is equally good with various summer berries. It is basically fruit baked in a slightly sweet custard.

The photo is of a version I made with fresh strawberries and blueberries that I froze when they were in season a few months ago.

It is a treat that is easy to make and receives praise inversely proportional to the effort it took to make it (my favourite kind of recipe!)

The two best recipes I tried to make a clafoutis are one from Nigella Lawson's book "Nigella's Express" and one from Donna Hay's monthly article in the magazine "Living Etc.". The following recipe is a mix of the two, plus my contribution of using evaporated milk instead of cream in the custard.

Fruit Clafoutis

about 400g of cut up fruit (enough to line the bottom of a 9" pie plate)

4 eggs

1/2 cup sugar (or less)

330 ml evaporated milk

1/3 cup flour

1 teaspoon vanilla

* First preheat the oven to 325F . Grease the bottom and sides of the pie plate. Wash and cut up fruit and layer evenly over the bottom of the pie plate. In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, sugar and vanilla. Carefully add the flour (try using a sifter) and mix so that there are no lumps. Pour the custard mixture over the fruit. Bake for 50 - 60 minutes.