Things have been difficult so far this year. It’s time to get back into the swing of things. While I have some of the regularly scheduled insanity on the way, I first have a slew of recipes to get out of the way.
First being our own tomato sauce, since most the recipes to follow will utilize it.
This is an easy, if time consuming recipe.
25 lbs tomatoes. Personally, I like Roma. We grew about half our own last year, hoping to do better than that this year.
Just wash and quarter those and throw them into a nice big stock pot with the following:
1 cup of olive oil
3\4 cup of red wine
1\3 cup of herbs. You can use what you like, We used Rosemary and Basil in ours.
Head of garlic, broken into cloves
2 large bell peppers
1 large onion
Couple of Bay Leaves
Take a potato masher and just crush all that together, then bring it to a boil and simmer it down until a good amount of the juice is gone. The house will smell divine.
Now, if you want to be all traditional like you can run this mixture through a tomato strainer…personally…god made blenders to make such jobs easier. So, strain or blender it into a separate bowl.
Once it’s all strained/blendered simmer some more if you are too runny, or can/preserve it via your most comfortable method.
There you have a fantastic base to make into pasta, pizza, or other sauce.