I’ve been thinking about creating a tomato cream sauce for a while. Actually, I wanted to make a vodka sauce, but I absolutely cannot stand vodka so we never have any in the house. We do, however, continually have a veritable mountain of tomatoes in the kitchen. Hello, Summer!

I’m beginning to get a huge crush on blender sauces. Toss everything into the blender, whiz it up, heat it up and you’re done. Between the blender sauce and the cappellini (aka angel hair) that cooks in 2-3 minutes, this is a lightning quick meal. It’s fast and tasty, but not exactly healthy. It’s a cream sauce! What do you want from me?!

The sauce makes enough to coat two reasonable portions of pasta. I say “reasonable” because when it comes to pasta, that’s not what I usually make. I tend to go for “ridiculous” which usually ends in my husband and I complaining that are stomachs are going to absolutelyexploderightthisminute for an hour after eating. If you make more than two lunch-sized pasta portions, you might want to make more sauce. However, you don’t want to drown your cappellini. This dish works best when it’s just lightly coated.

Cappellini in Fresh Tomato Cream Sauce
Serves Two

4 Small Tomatoes, quartered (about 2 Cups)
1/2 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Italian Herbs of your choice
3 Tbs Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese
1 Tbs Earth Balance
1 Tbs Nutritional Yeast
2-4 Cloves Garlic, optional

Heat well-salted water for you pasta.

While heating, whiz your tomatoes around in your blender until it becomes as smooth as it’s going to get. You should now have 1 cup of pink tomato sludge. Add remaining ingredients and blend again until well combined. Add mixture to a skillet over medium heat. Once you start to see it bubble, you’re going to have to stir it fairly constantly so it doesn’t burn. Use one of those fun rubber spatulas for this, I think it does the job best.

The sauce will be a light pink color when you start, but by the time it’s done it’ll be a rich, creamy orange. You basically want to cook it until the tomatoes lose their raw taste, which shouldn’t take too long, about 10 minutes.

Just before the sauce is done, add your pasta (broken in half for easier mixing with the sauce) to the water. Check for doneness after 2 minutes. Strain and add pasta directly to the sauce, right in the skillet there on the stove. Mix well and serve immediately topped with lots of freshly cracked black pepper.

If this dish sits after the sauce is added, it’ll clump up a bit. It’ll still be tasty, but the noodles will stick together. It’s best if you time it so you can serve it immediately. That should be pretty easy to do since the pasta cooks so quickly–just have it be the last part of your meal that you prepare.