You have loved and cared for your tomato plants for months and now they are repaying you by the bucket-load. But how many tomato salads can you eat? Your friends and family don’t even want any more! Don’t despair, there are so many easy and delicious ways to preserve them. One of my favourites is a simple tomato sauce. Not just for pasta – you can use this for the base of casseroles, add some cream and whizz it up for soup. In fact, use it wherever you would normally use tinned tomatoes. The sugar reduces the acidic taste of the tomatoes.
Ingredients
Tomatoes – weigh them
Per 500g of tomatoes you will add
½ cup chopped onion
1 Tbsp sugar
½ tsp garlic
¼ tsp salt
1 bay leaf
¼ cup of fresh origanum (you can leave it on the stalk)
OR 1 Tbsp of dried origanum
Method
Rinse the tomatoes and cut off any damaged parts.
Put them into a pot with 3cm of water and put on the lid
Bring to the boil and switch off the stove.
Leave for at least 30 minutes with the lid on. The tomatoes will sweat, and the skins will loosen. (cut a small cut in one and see if the skin is loose. If not, repeat the process)
Drain the tomatoes and make a small slit in each one.
Leave them to cool down (or if you are impatient like me, hold them on the end of a fork)
Peel the skin off and put them back in the pot, roughly chop or squash with a potato masher
Add the onions, garlic, origanum and salt and bring to the boil, turn down to a simmer. No lid this time
Cook for at least an hour so they boil off the water which intensifies the taste.
Remove any stalks of origanum
Blend until smooth. (This is optional.You can freeze them in their chunky state)
Leave to cool and then freeze in 300-500g containers or plastic bags.
Remember to label them