v:gourmet

I don’t know why every restaurant in the city serving pasta doesn’t have a veggie pasta option on its menu. It’s incredibly delicious, gluten-free, healthy, and – as you can see – very colourful. I got this pasta from the farmers’ market. Bob and Juli Proracki have a sweet potato farm in Norfolk county. From the Ukraine, via Manitoba, to Ontario, converting a tobacco farm into a hub of sweet potato production, Bob and Juli sell a number of varieties of sweet potato in their raw form and as prepared food. They sell “spiralized” raw sweet potato but if you don’t have access to Bob and Juli’s sweet potato pasta and/or you can’t find it already cut and ready to go somewhere else, you can buy a spiralizer in most good kitchen shops or online. I’ve topped these beautiful ribbons with my husband’s famous pasta sauce for which I’m going to give you the recipe. You saw it here first. Enjoy.

3 tbsps olive oil

4 onions, coarsely chopped

2 cans whole plum tomatoes

1/2 tsp chili pepper flakes, crushed or ground

2 tbsps sugar

sea salt and pepper to taste

6 – 8 garlic cloves, minced finely

Spiralized sweet potato pasta

Heat olive oil in a large skillet. Sauté onions until soft and translucent. Add tomatoes and boil down. Add chili pepper flakes (Andrew puts his in a pepper grinder and grinds them in), sugar (this is important if you don’t live in Sicily; if you have awesome Italian tomatoes baked in the Mediterranean sun you might not need the sugar), and sea salt and pepper to taste. Let simmer. Add minced garlic at the end and you’re done. No need to really cook the garlic. Just add, stir, and set the sauce aside until you’re ready to use.

Meanwhile, steam spiralized sweet potato pasta in a steamer for 5 minutes or until al dente.

Serve in a warm bowl generously topped with pasta sauce and a dollop of kale oregano pesto.