For tonight’s dinner, I used a product that’s new to me, but that is very common in Spain: Tomate Frito. It looks like crushed tomatoes, but actually it’s tomatoes slowly cooked in a little olive oil, often with onions and garlic. It’s smooth and mellow and very flavorful, and is a great head start on dinner.
For dinner, I sauted an onion and some garlic (my particular can of tomate frito did not include onions and garlic), then added the tomate frito, some frozen fava beans, and a bag of gnocchi, and cooked it until done. The sauce was lovely and I’m sure we’ll be eating a lot more meals like this in the future.
There’s nothing quite like this readily available in the US. I’m sure you can find it at specialty stores, and of course you can make your own with some time; but here it’s ubiquitous and delicious right out of the can.