Sauce like mamma’s at Crossroads Farm

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As a first-generation Italian-American child, a tomato milling machine was as ordinary to me as a skate key. At the same time, the very sight of it triggered my flight instinct: I knew the minute that machine appeared on my kitchen table that hours upon hours of stewing tomatoes, running them through the mill, pouring the sauce into Mason jars and then boiling them until ready were soon to follow. It was a process that I dreaded.

Today, the story is much different. I like to cook, especially from scratch since not many do that nowadays, and I have a great appreciation for fine cooking.

But I still don’ t have the patience, or the time, to make cooked-with-freshly-picked-tomatoes tomato sauce — which tastes awesome — and I’d bet you don’t either.


Enter Antonio Bove and his fresh tomato sauce team:

On August 24, Bove, who owns Antonio’s Deli and Uva Rossa in Malverne, came to Crossroads Farm equipped wtih a milling machine, Mason jars, Himalayan salt and a huge outdoor vat. He was met by a team of friends and farm volunteers that stood at-the-ready to make fresh tomato sauce from 175 pounds of the farm’s organic tomatoes. And, luckily for us foodies, the 75 jars of Italian red goodness that resulted will be for sale at the farm next week.

Bove oversaw the entire operation, while keeping everyone and the tomato sauce assembly line moving. If only I had that manpower in my childhood kitchen.

There are only three ingredients in the Mason jars: organic tomatoes, organic basil (both from the farm) and the salt. So, you may need to consult your Italian grandma, a cookbook, or my mom’s recipe below to complete the process and have pasta-ready sauce for your table:

Angie’s Tomato Sauce:

2 pints of farm-fresh tomato sauce
2 large cloves of thinly-sliced garlic
3 tablespoons of olive oil
A pinch of salt
3-4 fresh basil leaves

Heat the olive oil in a three-quart pot and add the garlic until you can smell the garlic’s aroma. Do not let the garlic brown.

Add the tomato sauce to the garlic. Stir. Put several tablespoons of water into the Mason jar and get the remaining sauce off the jar’s sides. Add it to the pot along with two shakes of a salt shaker and the basil leaves. Stir.

When the sauce comes to a boil, lower the heat and cover so the sauce simmers for a half hour. Add to one pound of cooked pasta. Enjoy.