Monday: Simple Pasta

Penne with anchovy-tomato sauce.

Well, tomato season is winding down...which means that this is probably the first dish we've posted in which we used canned tomatoes.

Our modern conventional food production system does allow grocery stores to stock "fresh" red field tomatoes year-round, but after you've had real local heirloom tomatoes it is just impossible to go back. Canned tomatoes make a more acceptable substitute for many types of dishes, including pasta sauces. We usually buy canned whole tomatoes as opposed to the chopped-up or pureed ones. In the wintertime, we occasionally get canned or frozen heirloom tomatoes in our CSA share, which is even better.

This dish is one of those easy weeknight dinners that takes under half an hour, start to finish, and we tend to make it as a fallback meal when we don't have a lot of time or energy. Frankly it takes about the same amount of time to do an easy pasta as it does to order a pizza...