Making your tomato sauce out of ingredients you picked a few moments earlier is one of life’s heady pleasures. In fact it’s so damn good it’s a wonder the club of Rome
After all the rain, Sunday's sunshine was bliss.
So I spent most of the day harvesting some of the nine varieties of tomatoes I grew over summer – as you can see this batch was mostly cherry and Tommy Toe.
It’s great as a pasta sauce base, or as a pizza spread or to enjoy on home made bread fresh out of the oven - Alas, I gave the chooks the leftover bread before I remembered to photograph it for the blog.
This time I used an adaptation of a Stephanie Alexander recipe From The Cook's Companion – it works a treat.
And the photo? It has not been digitally altered, this is a the colour of the tomatoes and they smell and taste amazing.
Ingredients
2 kg ripe tomatoes, roughly sliced
4 brown onions, sliced
10 garlic cloves, crushed then sliced
1 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil - check out olive oil via consumer watchdog CHOICE
Salt and black pepper, freshly ground
A large handful fresh basil or oregano leaves torn into small pieces – I like to add both
Method
Heat oven to 180c
Tumble tomato, onion and garlic with oil and put into a casserole dish with lid
Bake at 180C for at least one hour until the tomatoes have collapsed, their skins are wrinkled and golden-brown, and juices are flowing – it will smell divine.
When tomato and onion are soft, press everything through the coarsest disc of a food mill. If I am making a pasta sauce straight away then I’ll add the skins to give some more texture…
Season to taste and add the herbs.
This freezes well.
