If today’s weather reminds me of the new autumn season (and, not a moment too soon) the incredible heat and humidity of Saturday just made me want to scream.

“Enough already!”

As a cook, I have a new credo; if it’s over 90°, I won’t cook. Will not cook, won’t cook, don’t want to.

I will not bake, will not deep fry (despite that unctuous recipe for deep-fried oysters that I found in the NY Times), refuse to sauté, forget all about roasting vegetables and, oh, you can’t grill anything if you don’t have a grill to begin with.

The original plan was to hit the Haddonfield's farmer’s market for a few tomatoes for an uncooked tomato sauce. You know, you just chop them up (take our the cores first!), add some onion, some garlic, a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper, fresh basil and whatever other fresh herbs you have on hand. Toss it with some hot pasta, add some grated cheese or fresh mozzarella.

Add a nice loaf of crusty bread, a salad along with a nicely chilled rose, and, hey! Dinner’s done, and that was the plan.

Ever get really, really seduced by something that you don’t really want or need? I can tell you right now, this happens all of the time to us foodies, and I fell for these guys, and hard.

Little baby heirloom tomatoes, sweet as sugar, red and gold and green and orange with red striping on the inside. 10 pounds for 20 dollars. I’d clearly gone to “cook’s heaven” since all I could think about was making the simplest marinara sauce I could think of with these beauties and freezing it for the winter.

“Cooking Rule Number One:” If you have excellent ingredients to work with, don’t play with them too much.

So, Paul and I went into the kitchen, and we cooked! We now have 2 ½ quarts of summer goodness in our freezer, and here’s my very loose, somewhat undocumented recipe for the marinara that will just knock you out.

3 Tbsp. Of olive oil
2 good-sized onions, peeled and roughly chopped.
4 good-sized cloves of garlic, peeled and smashed
4 quarts (or, 16 cups) of dead ripe tomatoes , stemmed, cored and quartered (no need to peel, since they’ll be pureed anyway)
Fresh herbs: two good healthy handfuls of fresh basil, flat-leaf parsley and oregano
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

1 – Heat a big (and I mean a good non-stick 6 quart pot) over medium heat for a few. Add the olive oil, and let it get warm or until you can smell it.
2 – Add the onions, cook over a low heat, stirring, until they become golden and slightly soft (about 10 minutes). Raise the heat a touch and then add the garlic.
3 – Tip in the tomatoes, give it all a good stir. Raise the heat up until it starts to bubble, then turn it down to the lowest heat possible to keep it all moving. Cook very, very slowly for, oh, 20 minutes, and don’t forget to stir. Don’t add any additional liquid; the fresh tomatoes will give up their own soon enough.
4 – Tip into a bowl to cool. Now, you have three options here…you could let it cool overnight in the fridge and freeze it in the morning, or you may want to do this…
5 – After it’s cooled, puree it in the food processor, and then freeze, or…
6 – Warm it up again, add the fresh herbs, have some of it for dinner and freeze the rest!

Oh, and just a “cook’s note” here…this is not a thick sauce. If you’d prefer something a bit heartier, just simmer it on low until you’re happy with it!

As for what happened to the rest of those tomatoes? I’ll let you know in a future post. There's some beautiful, gorgeous heirloom green tomato (I think they're called "German Greens" and they're a bit tangy) sauce in the freezer later on this week that I'll have to figure out what to do with! Salsa verde, perhaps?

But, as Otto said in “A Fish Called Wanda”…

“Don’t eat the green ones. They’re not ripe yet.”