Tomato Leaf Pasta and Roasted Tomato sauce

What do you do when your garden presents you with a whole heap of tomatoes and the leaves on the plants look so good you do not want to waste it?  I checked to see if tomato leaves were edible - spent two days researching that - and they are edible, so then the next step was to find a suitable recipe - and this is what I got. 

Since it is lock down I had to manage with the ingredients I had at home; but if I had 00 flour, the pasta would have got me an immunity pin for sure! 

I trawled the internet to find recipes to suit the ingredients I had - so thank you to Jamie Oliver and to the Hungry Chook website for the recipes that I combined!

This is the first time I am making pasta from scratch and when I told my daughter I was going to do that her first response was "But you do not have a pasta making machine"  And I said to her, "well, my dear, Jamie Oliver says all I need is a rolling pin!" And that's how easy it was.

For Roasted Tomato Sauce

Ingredients:

800 grams of tomatoes (I used a mix of cherry, Russian Black and Italian tomatoes from my garden)
4 cloves garlic, peeled and squashed
3-4 tablespoons pitted olives
1 teaspoon chilli flakes
A large pinch oregano
Salt to taste

A few torn leaves of basil and freshly shredded parmesan cheese to serve.

Method:

Wash and dice tomatoes ( halve the cherry tomatoes), add the oregano, garlic, salt, chilli and olive oil.

Mix well, and put in a cast iron pot in the oven at 160 degrees fan forced and roast for an hour or slightly more, till you can see some tomatoes turning a bit black.

Mix in the cheese and basil, serve with pasta.

Tomato Leaf Pasta

Ingredients:

300 grams of 00 white flour ( I used plain white flour)
Fine semolina for dusting
150 grams of tomato leaves without stalks
2 -3 eggs at room temperature
1/2 teaspoon salt

Water, salt and 1 teaspoon olive  oil for cooking pasta

Method:

Blanch the tomato leaves in lightly salted boiling water for about two minutes, drain and plunge them into an ice bath to cool immediately. 

Squeeze out the excess moisture and add them along with two of the eggs to a food processor or blender. Pulse until the leaves are chopped very finely and the mixture is smooth. 

Make a well in the flour, scrape in the egg mixture and mix to combine. 

If the mixture feels dry, whisk the remaining egg in a small bowl and add a tablespoon at a time until it comes together; if feels too wet, add a little extra flour. 

Knead for about 8 - 10 minutes until you have a smooth, elastic piece of dough that springs back when you press on it with a finger. Wrap in plastic and allow to rest for at least 30 minutes and up to two hours, at room temperature. 

Roll out the dough 2 mm thick and lightly roll it and cut it at 0.5 cm thickness.

Spread out the pasta and when you are done, put into the boiling water that has the salt and olive oil in it.

Cook it for 4 - 5 minutes till it is al dente. Drain most of the water out reserving 1/4 cup.  Add the pasta with the water into the roasted tomato sauce.  Toss well. Serve on a warm plate with basil leaves and a dash of parmesan cheese.