Shame to cook tomatoes when they’re at their best. Roast them, by all means, in the bleak of winter, when even the so called Italian vine tomatoes are frankly rubbish – only Italian by name, I suspect. Polytunnel, more like.
I love fresh tomatoes with good quality pasta. The question whether you should buy ’fresh’ supermarket pasta is a moot point – buy dry. But good. If you think about it – and if you’ve ever made fresh pasta like I have (will be featured at some point, no doubt), you know that it lasts fresh for about 3 minutes, until you hang it to dry or plunge it into boiling water. ‘Fresh’ pasta from supermarkets clearly has lots of E stuff and additive stuff in it to make it last on a tray for weeks. Leave it where it is. Proceed to the ‘pasta’ aisle where you’ll find perfectly respectable dried stuff.
This recipe uses ripe fresh tomatoes and you’re blessed if you’ve grown your own in summer. Even in relatively rubbish climate like mine (UK) tomatoes grown outside are unmatched in flavour to the supermarket variety. It helps if you’re living with a tomato aficionado who lovingly sprays the plants with aspirin and waters them with a molasses solution – I kid you not. Sadly the fact that he’s also the Weather Man doesn’t guarantee lots of sunshine desperately essential for a good tomato crop – but at least I know when they’re going to be kaput and save some by drying.