I only use fresh, home-made ingredients…..
Except when I don’t.
The quality and availability of fresh, filled pasta of all shapes in our area is amazing.
While I am still happy to occasionally make ravioli, I never mastered the art of making tortellini or tortelloni or any of the other shapes, and I see no reason why I should start now.
I will, however, make the sauce… especially when I still have a counter full of (slightly damaged, but edible) tomatoes.
We have an unusually high population of punaise (stink bugs) this year and they are doing a lot of damage to my tomatoes.
This is a simple sauce, ready in 15 minutes.
Use any color tomatoes you like. The stink bugs didn’t seem to like my green tomatoes – not even when they were ripe.
Click here to Pin Tortellini with Green Tomato Sauce
PrintTortellini with Green Tomato, Olive Sauce
The green tomatoes make an interesting sauce. Use all of any color tomatoes that you like.
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 15 minutes
- Total Time: 25 minutes
- Yield: 2 servings 1x
- Category: Pasta
Ingredients
- 2 cups (15oz, 450gr) peeled, chopped tomatoes, any color
- 1/4 cup green olives, roughly chopped
- 1/4 cup black olives, roughly chopped
- 2 medium shallots, chopped
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 1 tsp basil
- 2 tsp olive oil
- 2 tsp butter
- 8oz (250gr) fresh tortellini
- Parmesan for sprinkling, depending on the filling / your preference
Instructions
- Cook pasta according to directions.
- Heat butter, olive oil in a medium skillet.
- Add shallots, garlic, and saute until tender.
- Add tomatoes, basil and simmer until thickened, 6 – 8 minutes.
- Add olives and keep warm until pasta is ready.
- When pasta is done, add to skillet with sauce and stir to combine
- Serve, with or without Parmesan.
Notes
Use this sauce with any pasta, filled or not.
Keywords: pasta, tomato sauce
BTW – the French for stink bug, punaise, is a gros mot, or swear word. It falls somewhere between merde (sh*t) and mince (thin).
Cursing does not translate well….
The invasion of the stink bugs has prompted me to put the potager to bed for the winter.
I pulled out all but 2 of the tomato plants…. You can see them at the far end. They’re coming out tomorrow.
I have one last butternut squash that was a late-starter. The leaves are still green on the plant so it may ripen.
The 2 orange-ish squashes are the mystery plants. I’ll pick them tomorrow, too, as it appears the plants died overnight.
Other than the parsley and chives along the fence that’s it for this year. It all looks rather sad.
I picked the rest of the winter squashes last weekend, and pulled out the plants.
That’s is for this year.
I think we’ll be eating winter squash until spring.
Is the stink bug issue an annual problem ?
They are always around late summer, but there are so many this year. It’s the first year it’s been a problem – usually just a minor annoyance
The sauce looks delicious! I too see no reason to start learning how to make all the pasta shapes when they’re readily available and fresh here.
My garden will look like yours by tomorrow. I have to finish pulling things today though I do have a few tomatoes and green peppers hanging on. But I’ll pick them all and then pull the plants. It’s gone quite cool here, in the 40’s and 50’s so my window for closing things down and still being relatively comfortable is shrinking quickly!
Also, the stinkbug population here has exploded this year. They’re all over my screens, my house, my plants…they’re…ugh! Thing One made the mistake of squashing one on her counter that managed to get into the house. I’d warned her not to. smh…
I open the windows and they fall on my head…. then lay on their backs wiggling their legs. I scoop them up on a piece of paper and toss them into the trash or back outside. Can’t vacuum them either – for the same reason you don’t smash’em. lol We’ve had cool, today and tomorrow warm, then winter…. Sigh
Strictly speaking ‘punaise’ and ‘mince’ are minced oaths, or euphemisms used to avoid swearing. That is to say, they are words used in polite company when what you want to say is a bad word. Using ‘sugar’ for ‘sh*t’ in English is an example. ‘Punaise’ is a substitute for ‘putain’ and ‘mince’ or ‘mercredi’ for ‘merde’ in French.
Well, my mother would not allow even ‘sugar’ in polite company…. lol. Yes, I do actually know all of the substitutes – one of my first conversation lessons many years ago. What I find interesting, is, my French teacher (for example) always says ‘mercredi’ when speaking French (she is French) but has no problem at all saying f*ck when speaking English.