Tomato Basil Pasta

I was always of the opinion that pasta is a tough dish to cook and best ordered at restaurants. This was until hubby expressed the desire to eat homemade pasta one day. Now eager to please him, I searched for online recipes. Tried many but somehow they were not as good as this recipe shared by my very good friend Tejal. Here is the video shared by Tejal.

This is the best and the easiest of all online recipes. It doesn’t take more than 20 mins...the sauce is ready in the time it takes for the penne pasta to cook. I love this dish for the freshness and aroma of basil.

Method

1. Boil 1 lt water in a vessel. Add 2 cups of Penne Pasta and 1 tbsp of salt and cook. Initially separate the pasta with a fork as the pasta tends to stick to the vessel. Keep stirring once in a while till the pasta is al dante. Here is a video on how to boil pasta.
2. Boil 4 medium sized ripe tomatoes till soft. Remove the outer skin and mash the tomatoes. I prefer cutting them into small pieces once boiled.
3. In a pan, add 1 tsp olive oil and cook the tomatoes. Add Salt and a pinch of sugar and let it simmer
4. In another small pan, heat 2 tbsp olive oil on a low flame. Add around 10-12 flakes of garlic chopped fine. Saute but don’t let it burn. Add 1 tbsp pepper powder (preferably freshly crushed pepper) and handful of basil leaves finely chopped. Cook all this on a low flame till you can smell the aroma of basil and garlic.
5. Now Drain the pasta, cool it under cold water (to stop the cooking process) and add it to the tomatoes. Try to cook the pasta and tomatoes simultaneously so that you can directly drain the pasta and add it to the tomatoes.
6. Now add the garlic basil seasoning. Add more olive oil to the pasta if you like
7. Garnish with grated cheese and olives.

Boiling the tomatoes was an easier way I had adopted but according to my friend Prasad's comments, tomato needs to be cut into pieces and cooked in the olive oil to retain the taste and flavors.