The joys of working from home: pasta with oven-roasted tomato red pesto

Once upon a time a girl was working from home. You know, a girl that might have absolutely nothing to do with reality, so let's call her... a Food Blogger. Now, a working from home-kind-of-day would have been perfect for something gloriously slow-roasted, but since our Food Blogger was so damn lazy busy, she never quite found it in her the time to go all the way to the shop (across the street).

Sure, a stew of slow-roasted meaty deliciousness might have been a bit tricky since she was also taking part in a Meat-free October (as I said, this story has nothing to do with any actual persons...)

For reasons the Food Blogger's hazy terribly efficient brain full of all sorts of important things couldn't quite remember, she did have a 1,5 kg of tomatos in the fridge. So, instead of a juicy bit of pork neck they found their way into the oven instead. After 4 hours they had dried and aromatized (big on making up her own words, this Food Blogger I see) as their flavours had concentrated (ooh, and fancy cheffy words as well!) 

So, the Food Blogger blizzed them into a pesto. Since our Food Blogger had a bit of an aversion to cheese (again: a totally fictional character!) she went for a Parmesan, a.k.a. dairy-free a.k.a. vegan pesto. And hey presto, a one-ingredient pasta sauce was done!

And then the Food Blogger managed to photograph the food in daylight (oh, the joys of working from home) and lived happily ever after.

(And then George Clooney called, invited himself over for a spot of lunch, fell madly in love with our Food Blogger, begged her to run off to Italy with him and then everybody lived happily ever after. The End.) 

(See, told you. Totally fictional.) 

This yields enough red pesto for 4-5 portions of pasta

Red pesto made of oven-roasted tomatos:

1,5 kg tomatos

3/4 tsp sugar

2 tsp Herbs of Provence

3/4 tsp granulated garlic

salt, black pepper

oil

For the pesto:

1,25 dl oil (left over oil from sun-dried tomatos works brilliantly)

1 large bunch of basil (2 handfuls for the pesto itself, rest for serving)

1/2 dl pine nuts (now with the pumpkin season on you could use pumpkin seeds as well)
1 tsp red wine vinegar

salt, black pepper

Cut the tomatos in half, remove the hard core and place on a baking sheet-lined tray the cut side up. Drizzle with oil and sprinkle the herbs and seasoning on the tomatos. Roast at 100-125° for 3,5-4 hours (depending on your oven). 

Let the tomatos cool down. Reserve 1/3 of the tomatos for serving and cut them into strips. Whizz remaining tomatos with rest of the ingredients, check the taste and season as needed. 

Cook pasta in salted water until done, drain (reserve some of the liquid), stir in pesto and add a bit of cooking liquid if needed to make it runnier.  Fold in tomato strips and rest of the basil leaves. Serve.

PS. Equally good on bread, too!

PPS. The pesto can be made ahead  as it'll keep (covered with a layer of oil) for days.

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ANYONE FOR SECONDS?