CSA Marinara Recipe

Too many tomatoes, eggplants, and sprigs of basil?

Not anymore!

Ingredients:

• Olive Oil
• Tomatoes (any kind will work), roughly diced
• Eggplants (any kind), peeled and roughly diced
• Basil
• Italian Seasoning
• Salt
• Pepper
• Garlic
• Wine (red or white, as long as it’s dry)
• A spoonful of honey or sugar
• optional: tomato paste
• Italian sausage (any kind)
• optional: cayenne
• Heavy cream
• Parsley

Why no measurements? That’s not how kitchen improv with your CSA works!

Method:

1. Put the olive oil, tomatoes, eggplant, basil, Italian seasoning, salt, pepper, garlic, wine, and honey or sugar into a large pot. Heat on low for several hours, stirring infrequently, The vegetables will break down.
2. Use an immersion blender to mix everything (or transfer everything to a food processor or blender, mix, and return to the pot).
3. Cook the Italian sausage. Add to the marinara.
4. If it’s too soupy, perhaps because the tomatoes were really juicy, add tomato paste.
5. Mix parmesan cheese (1/2 cup-ish) and a cup-ish of heavy cream. Adjust seasoning. (If the Italian sausage isn’t spicy, I add cayenne to give the sauce a kick.) Adding some chopped spinach into this step would work great, if you have some.
6. Serve over pasta, topped with parsley and additional parmesan cheese.
7. Since you made so much, put some in the freezer.

This recipe came from my Summer of 2020 CSA adventure. I had run out of ways to use eggplant and tomatoes and basil (especially since my son wouldn’t eat eggplant). I asked for his permission to try to make a marinara that would include eggplant.

This worked so well; the smokiness of the eggplant balances and complements the other ingredients. We tried other proteins, but when we didn’t have Italian sausage, it just wasn’t the same.

If we were vegetarian and didn’t know the joys of what Italian sausage would do, though, we would have still loved this dish.

I still have lots of this in my freezer, and the boy is happy when I resurrect some for a weeknight pasta fest.

I gave you the recipe before my life story, unlike so many recipe sites.

But here’s some life story, which has nothing to do with the recipe:

I was with my grandparents for my summers (and more) as a kid. They would often let my cousins and I play in the pool in the afternoons, until the first thunderclap.

There was always a first thunderclap, usually around 2 p.m., signaling a storm that would last about two hours.

That’s how Northern Florida works.

I would run in the house and change while my grandfather made popcorn. I would then take my place on his lap; we would watch The People’s Court, trying to guess how Judge Wapner would rule.

It’s the smells I remember most: buttered popcorn and the chlorine lingering on my hair. But I can also still hear the heavy rain pouring on our round house in the woods.

When therapists have asked me to picture myself somewhere safe, I’m on that lap, eating popcorn, smelling chlorine, listening to the rainstorms, determining justice.