Cooking with Tam

A little story about Tam and Jeff... We needed some tools for our VBS. Jeff had what we needed, so we planned on going to their house to pick them up later that day. Next thing we know, my husband, son and I were invited to dinner.
Dinner at Jeff and Tam's house is always and event. A gloriously wonderful event. They don't just cook, they CREATE. And that, my friends, is my favorite type of cooking.

After we donned aprons homemade by Tam, we were ready to cook.

Tonight we were making pasta sauce while Jeff grilled the chicken. (I don't have a recipe for the chicken, but it was amazing!)

Tam had already prepared all of the vegetables.
(*Please excuse my blurry photos, I forgot my regular camera, so I had to grab my husband's camera phone.)



My son was put to work getting all of the herbs ready. I loved learning a new way to have my son help in the kitchen.


And, Tam has the best cooking method. It's called the "Galloping Gourmet" method.*Wink, wink*



It was a great evening. We had so much fun and everything turned out amazing! Thank you to Jeff and Tam. Hope we can do it again real soon!

Tam's Insanely Good Pasta Sauce

Coat the bottom of the pan generously with olive oil.
When the oil is hot, add in chopped onions, garlic and red peppers.
Make sure that the vegetables get coated well with the hot oil.
Continue to cook until the onions are translucent.
Add in cut tomatoes. Again, make sure that the tomatoes are coated well in the oil.
When tomatoes start to get "mushy," put a lid on the pot and continue to cook.
Now is a great time to prepare your herbs. We had rosemary, parsley, basil and other herbs. You can pretty much put in whatever you like.
When the tomatoes have cooked down a bit, add in a generous helping of a good red wine. I learned that if you use cheap wine, it's going to taste like cheap pasta sauce.
Continue to cook down your tomatoes.
When tomatoes are good and mushy, you can use and immersion blender to blend your tomatoes down to a desired consistency.
At this time, some secret ingredients were added. (Balsamic Vinegar ans Sugar, to taste. Made all the difference in the world!)This is highly classified information and if you read it, I may have to kill you... (heehee)
Then, add in your vegetables (to taste). We used zucchini, asparagus and mushrooms among other things.
Stir in the vegetables and then your herbs.
Stir with cooked pasta and voila! You're done!