How to Boil Water: Basil Tomato Fettuccine

Before Addison was born (unexpectedly) I had gone to the grocery store and bought a bunch of groceries for the next week's meals. With those groceries included a bunch of fresh produce. I generally try to buy fresh produce and make as much of the recipe from scratch as possible because that just makes it healthier. We don't actually eat a lot of processed food in general in our household.

This week was no different and this recipe was a new one that sounded good, involved fresh produce, and was within my gestational diabetes guidelines. However, Addison came and everything was thrown off. Luckily, I have felt up to doing a little cooking so all that produce has not gone to waste. So I was at it again - cooking that is. And this was a pretty delicious recipe.

Ingredients:
4 cups water
7 medium tomatoes (about 2 pounds)
1 teaspoon salt
8 ounces uncooked fettuccine
2 garlic cloves, minced
3 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup minced fresh basil
1/2 cup minced fresh parsley
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes, optional

Directions:
1. In a large saucepan, bring water to boil. Using a slotted spoon, place tomatoes, one at a time, in boiling water for 30-60 seconds. Remove and immediately plunge tomato in ice water.
2. With a sharp knife, remove tomato peel. Seed tomatoes; dice pulp. Place pulp in a colander over a large bowl; sprinkle with salt. Let stand for 1 hour.
3. Cook fettuccine according to package directions. Meanwhile in a small skillet, saute garlic in oil for 1 minute or until tender.
4. In a serving bowl, combine the basil, parsley, pepper and pepper flakes if desired; add tomato pulp. Drain fettuccine; add to tomato mixture. Add garlic mixture and toss to coat.

When I first chose this recipe, I didn't realize that I was choosing a recipe that involved doing something I had never done before, i.e. peeling tomatoes. It was actually pretty cool to get to do and very simple. I was worried about doing it wrong at first, but there's really no way to do it wrong actually. It was a simple process and I got incredibly excited about the fact that I conquered something I had never done. I do have to say that I found it difficult to seed the tomatoes, but I was able to figure it out, although a few seeds slipped by me.

I have a bruschetta recipe that is delicious and this was basically that recipe, only instead of bread there was fettuccine. It was actually quite delicious. This was the first time I had ever eaten fresh parsley in a meal and I gotta say I wasn't a huge fan of it, but it was okay. It was very easy to make in general. But know that if you do want to make this recipe, make sure to start this recipe a little over an hour before you actually want to cook and eat this meal because the tomatoes need time to stand for an hour.