101 Uses for a Ripe Garden Tomato: #5--Pasta Sauce, Of Course (Also, What To Do With Fennel)

There are at least as many ways to make pasta sauce as there are cooks. I never make pasta sauce the same way twice, because--SURPRISE--I don't follow a recipe.

One of my no-fail pasta sauces includes tomatoes (or paste, or sauce, or all three), onions, sweet pepper, garlic, and sausage. For tonight's dinner, I wanted to include fennel also.

I thinly sliced two medium fennel bulbs. I tossed the sliced fennel with some olive oil and roasted it at 400 degrees for maybe ten minutes, and then I mixed in sliced onions, red pepper, and garlic. I roasted the veggies, stirring in a bit of beer (saved from bottling our first batch!), until they became good & caramelized. I then added chopped tomatoes, and roasted everything until the tomatoes were pretty much disintegrated. In the meantime, I fried some sliced Italian sausage and boiled some whole wheat penne. When everything was to my liking, I mixed it all together, served with freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano and a mixed salad.

Yum! And there are enough leftovers for both the O-Couple to take from Monday's lunch!