Susan's Sicilian Pasta Sauce

Take a trip to your local farmers market, grab some farm fresh Roma tomatoes (or yellow tomatoes if you need a less acidic sauce), some fresh oregano, basil, and thyme plants, and let’s get to making Susan’s famous Sicilian Pasta Sauce.

Side note- Growing your own fresh herbs is so much more flavorful than buying them from the store! Garden Valley has a great selection of fresh herbs for you to choose from, as well as fresh, homegrown tomatoes that are juicy and make the perfect base for this flavorful pasta sauce.
Also, if you head to this Garden Valley location, you’ll meet Susan, the founder of this delicious recipe that leaves her grown children coming back home for supper with empty stomachs, and leaving with full hearts (and bellies).

how to make susan’s sicilian pasta sauce

Before starting, we recommend that you turn on some of your favorite Italian music.

Cut the tops of the tomatoes off and slice the tomato in half. Add your tomatoes to the pan, and begin to cook over medium heat with salt and pepper and a 1/3 cup water. Cover and simmer for 15-20 minutes. Turn off your stove but let them sit for a bit, which will make it easier to peel the skins off.

Add your peeled tomatoes into the food processor or blender and pulse so that tomatoes are blended well but still have a thicker consistency. (If you’re wanting a smoother consistency, you can always choose the blend button instead of pulse.)

In a large pot, add 4 tablespoons of butter and whatever seasonings you’re wanting. We like to add Garlic, chopped Onion, Thyme, Oregano, Basil, Salt, and Pepper. You can also add red pepper flakes if you’re wanting a little bit of heat in your sauce. Let simmer, for 5 minutes, deglaze with a splash of red wine, and add your blended tomatoes.

If you’re wanting to add meat to your sauce, cook only three-fourth’s of the way through, and then add to sauce. This allows the meat to absorb the flavor of the tomato sauce, and will allow the meat to finish cooking without becoming dry.
A few meat suggestions:
+ Italian Sausage, Pork Ribs, or this Homemade Meatball recipe from Our Balanced Bowl

Bring ingredients to a boil, simmer throughout the day, and enjoy the fresh aroma of homemade pasta sauce filling up your home.

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Susan’s Sicilian Pasta sauce

INGREDIENTS

10-12 Roma (or Yellow) Tomatoes
1/3 C Water
4 T of butter
1 Medium Vidalia Onion
3 Garlic Cloves
2 T Oregano
2 T Thyme
3 T Basil
2 T Parsley
Splash of Red Wine

DIRECTIONS

1. Cut off the tops of the tomatoes.
2. Slice the tomatoes in half. Add halved tomatoes, water, and salt/pepper (to taste) into your pot and cover with lid. Let simmer on medium heat for 15-20 minutes.
3. Once finished, let tomatoes sit for 5-10 minutes to cool off. Peel skins of tomatoes off, add to blender, and pulse until a smooth texture is achieved.
4. Add butter, onion, garlic, oregano, thyme, basil and parsley to a large pot. Simmer over medium-high flame for approximately 5 minutes. Deglaze with a splash of red wine. Add blended tomatoes and stir together.
5. Bring ingredients to a boil, then reduce heat and allow to simmer at least 4 hours.

S I D E N O T E
If you are adding meat to your pasta sauce, cook only three-fourths of the way through so that your meat is not dried out and is able to absorb the flavor of the sauce. Here is a great meatball recipe.

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When you try this delicious sauce, we would love to see your photos, so tag @gardenvalleyfarmersmarket in your posts, and don’t forget to use the hashtag #gardenvalleyfarmersmarket and show us your pasta night!

Lastly, if you find this information helpful, we’d love it if you would support us
by sharing with your friends.

Happy Pasta Night!

Thank you so much for joining us here. For more information on what Garden Valley Farmers Market is about, you can visit us here. If you’re wanting to visit with us, come by any of our five North Carolina locations. If you’re wanting to follow along with us, you can do so either on our Facebook, Youtube, or our Instagram. If you’re wanting to earn rewards and be easily connected with us, download our new App. And if you’re wanting to check out our other recipes and blog posts, or are needing more inspiration, follow us on our Pinterest. We’d love to have you join us in our journey of planting better, eating better, and living better.
Much love,
Your Garden Valley Farmers Market Team

Heirloom Tomato Tart with Basil Sauce by Our Balanced Bowl

Heirloom Tomato Tart

I was so thrilled when Garden Valley Market reached out to me and asked that I develop a recipe using their product AND write a guest post on their blog! I moved to Burlington 4 years ago and have always loved popping in, being greeted by their friendly staff and always finding top notch produce.

I knew instantly that since it’s finally Summer that I wanted to develop a recipe using heirloom tomatoes. Fun fact: This is only the second Summer of my entire life that I have liked tomatoes! I always hoped that my taste buds would eventually change and lo and behold - they did! Another fun fact: In college, I worked at a produce stand in my hometown. I missed out on so many experiences to try the beautiful tomatoes while I was there - so you can bet that I’m making up for lost time now!

So what even are heirloom tomatoes?

According to some quick research I found on Bon Appetit, “The seeds are what make an heirloom tomato an heirloom tomato. They are passed down from season to season, taken by the farmers from the tomato plants that produced the best fruit. This process allows farmers to select for certain desirable traits like juiciness, size, shape, or color. Heirloom tomatoes are also often open-pollinated, which means that they are pollinated naturally, by birds, insects, wind, or human hands. No weird science-y genetic modification here.”

Basically, these are super cool, quirky tomatoes that don’t look like OR taste your regular ol grocery store ones. They might look super wonky but you can bet they will be extra juicy, most likely pretty large, and full of delicious flavor.

Let me tell you a little bit about this tart:

• It’s baked on a pre-made puff pastry because it’s summer and no one has time to make puff pastry from scratch when you’re just trying to live your summer vibe life

• It’s loaded with fresh, juicy heirloom tomatoes (ranging from german johnson to cherokee purple!)

• Topped with the most insanely fresh basil sauce made

• Also topped with super creamy and tangy feta cheese

• Best part: you can eat it with your hands! Minimal cleanup required! Yes!

It’s insanely easy and the perfect easy weeknight dinner!

Let’s get into how to make it:

You begin by preheating your oven to 400 degrees. I used a specific brand of puff pastry that I loved called Wewalka. I love it because it’s European style, contains no lard, and you don’t have to thaw it like normal puff pastry. It also comes with parchment paper! If desired, you can roll out the puff pastry to make it larger or more rustic looking.

Once you get the puff pastry to your desired size, poke holes all in it! You want to do this to ensure that the air can help escape from the bottom and it doesn’t just “puff” up.

Next, place it directly in the oven to par-bake for about 12-15 minutes. It’s important to do this step because otherwise the bottom of the puff pastry could be soggy.

While this is baking, slice your tomatoes into thin slices and set them aside.

When your puff pastry is done par-baking, arrange the tomatoes on top of it to cover. Add a drizzle of olive oil, a generous pinch of salt and a crack of black pepper. Place back in the oven for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown.

While the tart is cooking for the second half, whip up the basil garlic sauce! Place 1.5 cups of fresh basil leaves into a food processor along with 2 cloves minced garlic, salt and olive oil. Pulse until it’s blended.

By now, your tart should be done! Take it out of the oven, add a generous portion of feta cheese on top and dollop basil sauce if desired (or you could also use the basil sauce for dipping!)

Eat while warm or at room temperature! Enjoy!

Haylie Abele shares mostly healthy, occasionally indulgent recipes on her fun and lighthearted blog, Our Balanced Bowl. For more delicious, easy recipes follow her on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook or find her on her blog!

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Heirloom Tomato Tart with Basil Sauce

Ingredients

Heirloom Tomato Tart
1 lb Garden Valley Market heirloom tomatoes (about 3 medium heirloom tomatoes, any variety)
1 Wewalka sheet of puff pastry
½ cup feta cheese (more if desired)
Fresh basil leaves for garnish
Olive oil
Salt and pepper (for taste)

Basil Garlic Sauce
3 cloves minced garlic
1.5 heaping cups of fresh basil leaves
¼ cup olive oil (more if needed)  
¼ tsp salt

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Prepare your puff pastry on parchment paper and large baking sheet. Roll out if desired to make it bigger. Poke the entire puff pastry several times with a fork to allow the air to escape. Bake for 12-15 minutes.

• While the puff pastry is baking, slice your tomatoes thinly. Set aside.

• Once the puff pastry is done par-baking, remove it and place the tomatoes on top of the pastry. Add a drizzle of olive oil on top of the tomatoes as well as a generous pinch of salt and crack of black pepper. Put back in the oven for an additional 15-20 minutes or until golden brown.

• While the tart is finishing up, mince your garlic. Add this and 1.5 heaping cups of basil to a food processor along with ¼ cup of olive oil and ¼ tsp of salt. Pulse until fully blended into a sauce.

• By now, your tart should be done. Remove from oven. Sprinkle generously with feta cheese and fresh basil leaves. Dollop the basil garlic sauce on top as well or use it as a dipping sauce. Enjoy warm or at room temperature!

Sources: https://www.bonappetit.com/story/what-are-heirloom-tomatoes

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Haylie Abele is the creator of Our Balanced Bowl. Local to Burlington, NC, Haylie loves all foods, fresh ingredients, and creating new recipes. She’s also married to her forever love, Benjamin. If you ever get a chance to meet her, ask her about Ben, and see how her eyes light up. It’s darling.

Haylie has also struggled with an eating disorder in her life, and she shares a bit on her blog about how her thought process finally shifted. Thank you, Haylie, for sharing your story of eating all foods in BALANCE, and creating yummy recipes that inspire us all to eat healthy, while also inspiring us to ENJOY the indulgent foods we eat.

Haylie shares mostly healthy, occasionally indulgent recipes on her fun and lighthearted blog, Our Balanced Bowl. For more delicious, easy recipes follow her on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook or find her on her blog!

How To Choose Fresh Produce

At Garden Valley Farmers Market, we offer nothing but the best in our fresh produce grown by local farmers all across North Carolina. We offer produce ranging from freshly picked squash/zucchini to juicy, flavor-filled watermelons. But sometimes, knowing what’s ripe and ready to eat is hard to determine when you’re not use to picking them out.

And sure, we would LOVE nothing more than to help you pick out your produce for your yummy tomato sandwich, or that delicious frittata recipe we blogged about a few weeks ago. But, we also want you to know how to pick out your produce, just in case you’re in an area that does not have a Garden Valley Farmers Market.

Jenna Marie Visuals

Jenna Marie Visuals

Garden Valley only offers Grade A produce. So, how the grading scale works is this: the higher the grade, the better the quality of produce. The lower the grade, although usually cheaper, is not as good of quality. And we only want the best for our customers, so we only want to serve you Grade A produce. Because we know your families, and we only want them to have the best.

We also only serve seasonal produce!
Why?
1. It’s cheaper because it costs less to travel and distribute.
2. Seasonal produce tastes better and has more flavor.
3. Because seasonal means supporting our local farmers, and we’re ALL about that.

So now that we’ve covered what we offer and why, here are a few tips on

HOW TO CHOOSE FRESH PRODUCE

using our 10 most popular produce items. As a general rule: if it smells sweet, it’s time to eat.

Jenna Marie Visuals

Tomatoes: LIGHTLY squeeze, and if it feels firm but has a bit of give… it’s RIPE and ready for your delicious sandwich. If it’s hard, but doesn’t have any give… wait a day or two. If it’s mushy and your finger pokes a hole through the skin… please don’t eat it.

Jenna Marie Visuals

Berries: You want your berries to be rich in color, and plump in definition. If there are stains in the basket, that means they probably need to be eaten soon.

Watermelon: You want to choose a firm and heavy watermelon. Thump the side of it, and if it sounds hollow, then it’s ready for you to cut open and enjoy at your family cookout!

Avocados: Gently squeeze. If there is yield when gentle pressure is applied, but it’s not mushy, than it’s ready for your guacamole!

Apples: When choosing apples, make sure there are no soft spots, are firm, and have a deep coloring to them. And remember that an apple a day keeps the doctor away.

Cantaloupe: This is one of those produce items that you can generally judge by smell. If the stem smells sweet then it is ripe to eat. Other signs of a ripe cantaloupe would be a firm exterior with a underlying color of orange and white (green means it could ripen a few more days).

Corn: Make sure the husks have no holes or browning. Also consider asking the sales associate if you can pull the husk back to inspect the corn.

Jenna Marie Visuals

Cucumbers: If the color of the cucumber is medium to dark green and firm if squeezed, than you are good to take it home, cut it up, and pour vinegar over it for a delicious snack! Make sure there is no yellow or wrinkles in the skin of the cucumber.

Bell Peppers: You want your bell peppers to be heavy, firm, glossy and a taut skin. If there are wrinkles, that probably means that it should be eaten VERY soon, or not at all…

Mangos: Gently squeeze. If there is a slight give, with soft flesh inside, than it’s ready for that delicious tropical smoothie. Or by itself.

We, Garden Valley Farmers Market, only want to serve you the best produce provided by our local farmers. We hope you continue to stop by one of our five locations in North Carolina for your produce, because we’ll be here waiting and ready to help you choose your produce, and so much more!

Sincerely,
Your GVFM Team

Rosemary, Vegetable Medley Frittata

We, at Garden Valley Market, are SO glad that Spring is here, and one of the main reasons is because of delicious recipes made with FRESH and LOCAL vegetables. There are so many recipe options, but we can only choose one. This time we decided to make a vegetable medley frittata, including our vine-ripened tomatoes, fresh zucchini and onion, hand picked rosemary directly from a local garden, and some fresh local farm eggs provided by a local family here in Burlington, North Carolina.

When picking out your produce, it’s important to examine each piece and choose it according to your needs. Asking yourself the questions like:

When am I going to be using this zucchini?
How big of an onion am I needing?
How ripe of a tomato will I need for my recipe I’m making tomorrow?
Where is this grown?

Those are all questions that our staff at Garden Valley Farmers Market can help you with if you’re unsure. And that’s why shopping local can be so much better than going to other stores. Why? Because we only buy from farmers who grow grade 1 produce. We also only provide field grown produce, and absolutely no hot house. We stand behind our product and want nothing but the best produce for you, especially when you’re making yummy recipes, like a Frittata, for your family.

WHAT IS A FRITTATA?
Basically it’s an omelet, but it’s cooked faster than an omelet, and usually served at room temperature.
Frittatas are also great because they don’t take a ton of time to prepare, and they can usually serve a large group (unless you have a family that likes to EAT, then you might want to serve up two of these).

add eggs and spices to bowl

whisk rosemary, salt, and pepper together with eggs

chop up veggies

combine all of veggies into skillet and cook for about 7 minutes

add handful of kale into mixture and cook until wilt

pour egg mixture over vegetables and cook until edges start to set

cook in oven at 350 F for about 15 minutes, then on broil HIGH for about 2 minutes

let sit for 5 minutes, then serve

ROSEMARY, VEGETABLE MEDLEY FRITTATA
Servings 8-10 people
Total Time 30 minutes

INGREDIENTS

+ 8 large eggs
+ salt and pepper to taste
+ olive oil (for the pan)
+ 1 small better boy tomato
+ 2 sprigs of rosemary
+ 1/2 medium sized red pepper
+ 1/2 medium sized zucchini
+ 1/2 small vidalia onion
+ handful of fresh kale
(optional- feta cheese for garnish)

INSTRUCTIONS

+ Preheat oven to 350 degrees F with rack in center position.
+ In a bowl, combine the eggs, sale, pepper, and rosemary. Whisk well.
+ Heat olive oil in a 10-inch cast iron skillet over medium heat.
+ Add red bell pepper, onion, tomato, zucchini. Sauté until softened, about 7 minutes.
+ Add kale to vegetables and cook until it starts to wilt.
+ Distribute the vegetables evenly in skillet and pour egg mixture into skillet.
+ Cook until eggs are just beginning to set around edges, about 2-3 minutes.
+ Place skillet in center rack of oven. Bake frittata for about 15 minutes.
+ Turn broiler on HIGH for 2 minutes. Be careful to watch to prevent over-browning.
+ Remove from oven. Let frittata sit for 5 minutes before serving.
+ ENJOY!

*You can also garnish with a fresh sprig of rosemary and crumble some feta cheese for an added “wow factor” that your guests (and yourself) will LOVE.