Here are three super delicious, very easy ways to prepare tomatoes for on pasta. They all take advantage of fresh-from-the-garden tomatoes, and the last one also works well with canned tomatoes.

Pasta with Fresh Tomato Sauce

This is what I ate the night ED was born, twenty years ago on the 23rd. Sigh. It’s perfect for tomato season, when it can be so hard to stop what you’re doing outside to come in and fix dinner.

Put your water on to boil for pasta. I like angel hair or thin spaghetti; the rest of my family prefer something tubular. Whatever you choose, while it’s cooking, coarsely chop some good ripe tomatoes—for a pound of pasta, you want three or four cups chopped. Next add a generous glug of olive oil, and some finely minced (or pressed) garlic; minced fresh herbs—especially basil; salt and pepper, and some kind of vinegar. Not a lot of vinegar, but a good sprinkling. I usually use balsamic or red wine vinegar, and lately I’ve been using umeboshi plum vinegar, which I love so much, I use it on everything! Toss all this together—it should be juicy. Taste and add a little more salt or vinegar if you think it needs it. Next toss it with the hot drained pasta, and top with a bit of cheese—ideally feta, but grated romano will work. It won’t be hot, more like room temperature, but so nice on a hot evening!

Buttery Tomato Sauce

We just discovered this one this year, and it’s incredibly good! Especially with homemade butter and homegrown tomatoes.

While cooking a pound of whatever pasta you prefer, melt 6 or 8 tablespoons of butter in a saucepan on medium low heat. Add a few (4?) cloves of very finely minced garlic and cook gently (do not brown the garlic). Add a 1/2 teaspoon or so of lemon zest, a couple of tablespoons (maybe even 3 or 4) of lemon juice, and two cups of either diced big tomatoes, or halved cherry tomatoes. Simmer gently until the tomatoes are soft, and add a big handful of chopped fresh basil leaves, and salt and pepper to taste. Toss with the hot pasta and serve immediately.

Pasta all’Arrabbiata (Pasta ‘Angry Style’)

This time I’m not going to tell you to cook your pasta, because I’m sure you already know that. So don’t be surprised and shocked, when at the end of the recipe I tell you to toss the sauce with hot drained pasta. Because you knew that, right?

Put a good glug of olive oil in a skillet—I prefer a stainless steel skillet for this because of the acidity of the tomatoes. Heat over medium heat. Add one slivered medium onion, and two or three cloves of garlic, whacked with the flat side of a knife, and then chopped into a few big hunks. Saute for a minute or two, but before the garlic browns (nothing worse than the bitter taste of browned garlic), add an anchovy fillet or three, and a minced fresh hot pepper. (You’ll have to determine how much pepper to use, because it depends on your taste for hot food, and the heat of the pepper. For the four of us, a whole average-heat jalapeno or fish pepper without the seeds, is perfect.) Stir those around a little, and when the onions have started to brown just a little, deglaze with a small glass of red wine, and then add a quart of chopped fresh tomatoes. Cook for twenty or thirty minutes, until it’s pretty well cooked down, and add some chopped fresh herbs—oregano or marjoram or basil. Toss with the pasta, which should be pretty al dente so that it can absorb any extra juice from the sauce without becoming mushy. Serve with a generous grating of Romano or something equally sheepy.

This adapts very well for winter use, too—it’s one of our winter staples. Just use a quart of canned tomatoes instead of fresh, and red pepper flakes and dried oregano or basil. Please don’t skip the anchovies, though—they really make this sauce, without tasting fishy at all. As a matter of fact, you probably wouldn’t know they were in there, except they make it exceptionally wonderful, and it’s a little flat without them.