Mom had given me a bunch of tomatoes that I hadn't done anything with. Being out of tomato products of every kind, in desperation I decided to try to make sauce. Roughly, Mom's tomato sauce recipe calls for:
Tomatoes
Onions
Garlic
Bell peppers
Hot peppers
Parmesan cheese
Salt
Pepper
And ... I'm sure there's more to it, but I can't remember the rest off hand.
Anyway, in between texting Mom for the ingredients, I threw all of the above into a pot to cook down. I had no idea what sort of cooking time was involved, but in less than an hour it had reduced by half.
I strained it through a screen colander, smushing it all down with a potato masher until the skins and things were nearly dry. In the pot beneath, I had wonderful fine tomato sauce. It was so acidic that it about burned through my tongue, though. It only came to about 3/4ths of a cup. I split it and made half into spaghetti sauce for that night.
Tonight I'm making a pot of chili with the rest. It has a very fresh, bright flavor, but I think I overcompensated for the acidity with too much sugar, because now I have chili that tastes like it started as baked beans. Oh well! It's still tasty.
4 comments:
Glad to hear you're making do with nothing but tomatoes!
I remember when Mom made some kind of sauce (minestrone, I think?) and there was so much sugar in it that it was practically ruined.
Though she did later manage to salvage it by deluding, salting and remixing it with all kinds of other stuff.
You do have food to eat right? I mean your cupboards are not bare?
I am glad you sauce turned out. What little bit there was. Dad and I have put 11 gallons of peaches in the freezer and I have made two cobblers. Both gone in a day.
I wish you had started with these peaches because they are so nice.
I am going to do another batch tomorrow morning. I got corn in my freezer this morning too, but the chickens got the most. They were really happy about it. :)
Mom: We have beans, rice and pasta, so we won't starve. It'll just be boring for another day. I still have plenty of cantaloupe and the kids have been snacking on that.
Will: This wasn't quite as sweet as that. It was more like having baked beans with chili powder in it, so it was sweet and burned your mouth at the same time. Holly had thirds. :-)
I am impressed... I never know what to do with to many tomatoes.
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