Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Homemade Tomato Sauce

We spent a week in the Bahamas last week and come back to find that all our tomatoes decided that it was time to ripen! Their timing couldn't have been worse. I'd been waiting for them to turn red for over 3 weeks now. A lot of them were rotten by the time I got to them. Its a shame. These are the ones I brought home, I threw out just as many rotten ones. Most of the ones I bought home were overly ripe. There was no way I could hold on to these longer than a day. Turning these into something preservable was crucial.

Tomato sauce. I had home grown tomatoes, onions and herbs. The only store-bought item that went in was garlic. I sauteed loads of finely minced onions and garlic. Meanwhile, the tomatoes went into a boiling water bath for 1 minute, just to loosen up the skin. I honestly got tired of this step and eventually just minced the tomatoes skin-on. So half were skinless, half with skin. It didn't seem to make much of a difference in the taste. All the tomatoes got a whirl in the food processor to a fine mince. Once the onion/garlic was browned, in went the tomatoes, some salt and a bit of sugar. I also added a mix of fresh herbs from my patio - oregano, rosemary, thyme and lots of basil. Bring to a boil and let it cool down before filling up your containers.
I'm not into canning, but I figured freezing the sauce was an easier alternative. I got ziploc freezer safe containers and loaded them up. 6 lbs worth of tomato sauce. This will last a while!

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