Since we started growing veg, summer is synonymous with an abundance of fresh fruit and veg…more than we can use right away. Not that I mind, as I love to have shelves full of homemade preserves so when things like tomatoes are finished for the year, we can still be eating organic remineralised products made from those tomatoes for a long time to come.
Tomato sauce (as in, what you would eat with sausages etc) is one product we wanted to be making for ourselves. And it took a while to find a recipe we were happy with, because the children didn’t like so many that we tried, so kept asking for bought tomato sauce!
Matt Preston’s Tomato Sauce, which he says is a recipe from his mother-in-law, is the best we’ve found. http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/matt-prestons-tomato-sauce/751a8855-76c1-4f9f-b6e4-3ad781c9e73d
The only changes I made to the ingredients in that recipe (you can follow the above link to check it out) were:
-using organic raw sugar instead of plain sugar
-using apple cider vinegar instead of malt vinegar
-leaving the spices in there and blitzing them in with a stick blender at the end.
And if you’re making it at home, sourcing homegrown tomatoes is going to produce a much richer flavour than using supermarket (or mass farmed) tomatoes. Tomatoes farms are also usually subject to toxic sprays (like I mentioned in the post on glyphosate), so making sauce from them…or eating them at all, is really not ideal if you value your health.
The change I made to the method, was in using all the tomato, and not peeling them or sieving out the seeds. We like the whole-tomato texture (and it saves a lot of time!).
Now, at the moment we have loads of tomatoes, and I also have organic vinegar, spices and sugar that we’ve sourced to make a huge pot of this sauce. I thought it would be fun to get together with other people who are interested, work together to make a huge pot of sauce and everyone can take a 1L glass bottle of it home. I have enough glass bottles, but if you would rather spread the 1L between several smaller jars, then BYO and that’s fine too.
Cost will be $25 and sorry for the short notice (but I was waiting for the organic vinegar to arrive!), the class will be this Wednesday 20th December, 2pm at Birdsong Market Garden. If you’re interested, you’ll need to RSVP, as we’ll have to cap numbers at 5-6 people (participating adults). Email me at racheal@birdsongmarketgarden.com.au to let me know if you’d like to come. You can pay on the day (and we have paypass facilities if you need).