Spaghetti al Pomodoro e Basilico-A delicious recipe for spaghetti made with summer’s sweet plum tomatoes, onions, and fresh basil. Ready in under 30 minutes! Make it all summer long with your summer’s tomato bounty!

This is my go-to pasta dish. We eat an exorbitant amount of pasta here. In our house, there is no fear of carbs and we do not have gluten issues. We don’t run from carbs, we embrace them.

To us, a meal without carbs is well, not a meal. Last summer my mother-in-law and grandmother-in-law were here for a month. They cooked for us every night. They planted a garden.

Nonna Antonia woke up one morning at 7 a.m. and declared, “Vado fuori a zappare.” Translation: I am going outside to hoe. Out she went in her black skirt (she is in mourning)and purple polyester shirt and asked for a shovel. She was 82 at the time.

I was standing there barely awake trying to ingest my caffe’ latte as fast as possible to better comprehend what she was asking. I thought she was kidding. She was serious.

Nonna proceeded to go out front and she started to prep the land. That meant, tear apart 1/2 of one section of our front yard . Neighbors were whispering to each other. I quickly finished chugging my caffe’ latte and grabbed my camera.

I was beginning to wonder if I should stop photographing the event and start digging with her. I offered my assistance and she told me in uncertain terms to back off. Seriously, she didn’t need my help.

Nonna Antonia grows every thing and makes every thing from scratch. She has the most amazing olive trees in Calabria. Tears are trickling down my cheeks just thinking of her olives and olive oil. Her husband, Nonno Giuseppe, passed away two years ago.

My father-in-law and mother-in-law go to Calabria every year to help take care of the olives. Luckily, we get care packages a few times a year with olives in freeze-dried packages.

Buying tomatoes with an Italian Nonna

One of the important things they taught me that month was how to can tomatoes. We went to my little vegetable market (it’s Latino, of course), and bought about 20 lbs of plum tomatoes.

My mother-in-law was glancing furtively at the Latina girls while fondling the tomatoes and mumbling in Calabrese to me, “These tomatoes are awful. They have no color. They aren’t like our tomatoes.”

For obvious reasons, I was feeling uncomfortable. I knew the girls couldn’t understand her, but it was the way she was handling the tomatoes. They knew their tomatoes weren’t good enough for this foreigner speaking in a funny language.

I offered her to go to another market, but she didn’t want to waste time. We had canning to do. We canned tomatoes for one whole afternoon. Even though the tomatoes were of questionable quality, those canned tomatoes we made rocked!

My canned tomatoes from last May are long gone. Every once and a while I think of making them again. It just won’t be the same without the nonnas. I still frequent my Latino market and stock up on tomatoes once a week.

Last night I made a quick Spaghetti al Pomodoro e Basilico. It is easier to make than you might think. If there is one Italian dish you could learn to make, this should be it.

What ingredients are needed to make this fresh tomato sauce?

spaghetti
fresh plum tomatoes
extra-virgin olive oil
onion
salt
fresh basil

Some other pasta recipes:

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