Due to the heavy nature of my last post and the next one I’m working on I thought I would inject some easy reading with a delicious recipe. Unlike most blog recipes I am not going to write my life story and bury the recipe somewhere at the bottom of the page. So I’ll give you the recipe and then tell you why it’s so great!

Neapolitan sauce

30g butter

1 tbls oil

2 x 400g cans tomatoes

1/2 tsp basil

2 tbls chopped parsley

Salt and pepper to taste

Heat butter and oil in a pan; add undrained tomatoes that have been pushed through a sieve with their liquid. Add basil, salt and prepped and bring to a boil. Reduce heat simmer uncovered for 30-40min or until sauce is reduced by about half. Stir in parsley

Serves 2 - so naturally double it

The cans on tomatoes I bought added up to more so I just used it all, it’s not really the type of recipe that requires exact measurements.

Also if you’re like me and you don’t have a chefs kitchen, you also don’t have a sieve, so I just used a colander and a rubber spatula and my hands. I’m kind of like an old lady and I just get my hands in there to do the hard work.

I would recommend serving this over fresh pasta if you can get your hands on some, if not best second choice would be ravioli or tortellini (something from Olivieri works). Top it with a little fresh parmesan cheese and serve with a glass of red wine. Mmmmmmm!

I found this recipe in a vintage cookbook from 1964. My husband’s grandmother picked it up when she was in Australia of all places, but it tastes just like pasta sauce and pizza sauce in Italy.

Almost 5 years ago now, I had an amazing opportunity to go on a trip with a friend to Italy. This was going to be my last big “hoorah” before starting a family. It was an amazing trip, and this pasta sauce brings me back each time!

We flew in to Venice where we indulged in our first glass of wine on tap. We hoped on a train and were suppose to be on our way to Siena but decided to take an afternoon detour to Florence (when in Rome!) and hit up the leather market. From there we hoped back on the train to our initial destination of Siena. While in Siena we went on an amazing wine tour, I got tipsy on the first half and my friend on the second half – FYI I will never take my drunk friend to a foreign grocery store again!

After Siena, we were back on the train and on our way to Rome. We opted to rent an apartment instead of a hotel so we could be closer to the hotspots and pay less. This was also a great opportunity to have a place with a washing machine so we didn’t have to pack as much. I knew housing in Europe was a lot smaller and “efficient” but damn! I think the bathroom was only slightly smaller than the entire living space. Oh well we weren’t going to be spending much time there anyways. Our accommodations were only two blocks away from the colosseum. We did a lot of walking while in Rome I think we clocked around 30 kilometers in one day when we walked to the Vatican, took the tour and walked back (not the smartest of ideas).

The real adventure started when we left Rome. We decided to rent a car and drive down to the Almafi coast. Oh my.. I’ve driven in Europe before and was the one out of the two of us who had most recently driven standard so I took the wheel.. I’ve never driven on a five-lane highway/freeway before, nor have I ever had people passing me on both the left and the right when there were only two lanes. Oh but we had some fun though. We did not think ahead about tollbooths, I think we just assumed we could use a credit card, well we hit a couple that only took coins so I had to send my friend running up to other cars to get change! Then of course there was the situation where we pulled in to the wrong lane in a 10 + toll booth set up. We pulled in to a lane that only took passes and when we tried to use the help call button they didn’t speak English, so they ended up just opening the gate to get rd of us.

Most of our really great stories from this trip revolve around driving. Like when we had to park on a down-sloped hill and couldn’t get out without almost hitting the car parked in front of us. We tried everything to get out of there, we even had one of us reach down holding the clutch while the other one tried to throw it in gear. The worst part about it was there was a guy sitting at a café watching us struggle the whole time. Finally some banter started with this guy and my friend just yelled at him “FINE! YOU COME HERE AND DO IT!” And he did. Sorry we come from the Prairies where everything is flat flat flat, and we did not learn to use the e-brake, rev the engine and gun it – but boy was that funny.

Driving along the coast from Solerno to Posatino was something else. These roads were narrow and wound around the cliffs where you couldn’t see what was coming around the corner. I experienced these same roads driving in Greece on my honeymoon, but we were on a quiet island and didn’t have to deal with the traffic. When you’re coming up to a curve and all of a sudden a coach bus rounds the corner and is coming at you in your lane you kind of pee your pants (note the picture, my friend Robyn’s face was a joke mine was not I had no idea she was taking this picture). You could open the window and hold the stone guardrail the roads were so narrow. The coast was absolutely beautiful though; we got sunburn and relaxed in comparison to the hustle of Rome.

Our trip was coming to an end, our last stop was Naples. We discovered that Naples is where the Jersey shore folks clearly descend from. The guidos (and female equivalents) were everywhere. I think I hated driving here the most. There were people on scooters everywhere, weaving in and out of traffic, honking, yelling and not following any sort of road rules. I wanted to run over a line of parked scooters I hated them so much.

For one last stupid moment we got ourselves stuck with no money to get on a train and there were no ATMs or places to buying anything to get cash. A wonderful woman took pity on us, as we were able to scrounge enough money for one of us so she gave us one of her pre purchased tickets. As I write all this I realize we really didn’t plan well at all lol. Oh well it’s all in the story you get afterwards.

The food, the wine, the beer and the sights were amazing. This trip brought my friend Robyn and I closer together and I am so thankful to have had the opportunity to go on this trip. It was quite spur of the moment but a trip of a lifetime!

So anyways, go buy the ingredients and make this sauce it’s so yummy and it’s like eating in Italy all over again!