During a break...
Aug. 16th, 2007 04:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rowangolightlyWaiting for my china silk and brocade to come out of the rinse cycle after dying it.
Oldwolf, I found it...I'd posted it in the Cooking LJ group 'cause its very ramply.
So here it is:
Garden Tomato Adventures
I've been meaning to post this, so here it is.
What to do with all those garden-fresh tomatoes? Of course, I blanch them to get the skins off, by which I mean, dropping them into boiling water for a minute or two then dumping them into ice water for the same amount of time. The skins peel right off leaving you with juicy tomato 'meat'.
Now what? Well, there's salsa or marinara or spaghetti sauce and there's a million recipes to google. I have to admit that summer before last I stuck them all into freezer baggies and big gallon jars and froze them. Then they sat there in my freezer and I ended up throwing them all away after an extended power outage. Frustrating. Then last year I was really industrious and worked really hard with seasonings and herbs and my big crock pot and made the most horrible, bitter spaghetti sauce ever. I damnnear gave up on the whole proposition.
Being the eternal optimist, I tried once more this spring and planted 9 tomato plants. When they started ripening, I started googling recipes.
These are a sampling of what I studied:
http://www.weeklydish.com/2006/03/21/basic-recipe-oven-roasted-tomato-sauce/
http://www.toomanychefsdev.com/archives/001174.php
http://www.epicureantable.com/recipes/S/soroastom.htm
http://recipes.epicurean.com/recipe/2522/roasted-tomato-sauce.html
You have everything there from a 200 degree oven to a 450 degree oven and skinning or not skinning, putting the garlic in aluminum foil and all sorts of fussing; the common denominator being to skin them first, spread the pan with aluminum foil and add whatever you want as far as onions or garlic or herbs. I had about 2 dozen tomatoes of all sizes, mostly of the Best Boy variety. I also used two green peppers and two small zucchini from my garden, 2 onions, a whole head of garlic.
I was attracted to the 'caramelized onion' idea; knew the fiance would like that. And all of them mention 'scraping the browned bits' once roasting is done but after having two large cookie sheets with sides in the oven at 250 for almost an hour, it was readily apparent that there was way too much juice in the pans to allow anything to caramelize so I turned the oven up to 400. Much better; soon the house started smelling like an Italian eatery.
Keeping a close eye on both pans and wondering if I'd've gotten more caramelization if the pans weren't so crowded, I stirred and turned everything so that browned bits would be buried and more could brown. This went on for almost two hours before I decided they were done.
Then I drained off the liquid...did I mention how very much liquid there was in these tomatoes? I drained off nearly a quart and a half of tomatoey-juice to add back into the sauce later after I'd pureed it. I put smallish batches of the roasted veggies into my Cuisinart and pureed them, dumping each batch into the big stew pot on my stove. When that was done, I turned on the heat to low, added back in the juice and started adding herbs and seasonings.
Now, I use strictly Penzey's spices. Yes, I do. They're well worth it and I wish like mad that we had a Penzey's shop anywhere in Oklahoma! They really cost less than the crap you get in the grocery store and taste 10 times better. Do a cinnamon sniff test sometime comparing 'regular' spice you buy at WalMart and the China Cassia Cinnamon from Penzey's...careful, you could get whiplash from how powerful the smell is of the good stuff! Anyway...
I sauteed a bit more garlic in butter and then in the same pan, reduced about 3/4 cup of leftover red wine that I had in my 'frig for just such an occasion and added that to the sauce. I kept tasting and adding spices and sea salt and freshly ground pepper....lots of it, more than I expected that I'd need. Please don't ask me for amounts; I can't give them to you since I just add stuff until it tastes right!
Finally I stirred in two small cans of tomato paste because it needed some 'red', a small amount of sugar and called it done.
That took me all afternoon and evening but I ended up with 2-1/2 quarts of lovely sauce. The next day I made lasagne and it was nummy! I still have 1-1/2 quarts of sauce left. I'll pick some more tomatoes, do the same thing and this time, sterilize the jars and can them properly so that they don't have to stay in the freezer where I'll forget about them.
Next time I make it or when I bring the sauce out of the freezer, I'm adding some honey to make it a bit less tangy. I read somewhere recently here that adding honey solved the problem of a nnot-quite-right seasoning dilemma.
Oldwolf, I found it...I'd posted it in the Cooking LJ group 'cause its very ramply.
So here it is:
Garden Tomato Adventures
I've been meaning to post this, so here it is.
What to do with all those garden-fresh tomatoes? Of course, I blanch them to get the skins off, by which I mean, dropping them into boiling water for a minute or two then dumping them into ice water for the same amount of time. The skins peel right off leaving you with juicy tomato 'meat'.
Now what? Well, there's salsa or marinara or spaghetti sauce and there's a million recipes to google. I have to admit that summer before last I stuck them all into freezer baggies and big gallon jars and froze them. Then they sat there in my freezer and I ended up throwing them all away after an extended power outage. Frustrating. Then last year I was really industrious and worked really hard with seasonings and herbs and my big crock pot and made the most horrible, bitter spaghetti sauce ever. I damnnear gave up on the whole proposition.
Being the eternal optimist, I tried once more this spring and planted 9 tomato plants. When they started ripening, I started googling recipes.
These are a sampling of what I studied:
http://www.weeklydish.com/2006/03/21/basic-recipe-oven-roasted-tomato-sauce/
http://www.toomanychefsdev.com/archives/001174.php
http://www.epicureantable.com/recipes/S/soroastom.htm
http://recipes.epicurean.com/recipe/2522/roasted-tomato-sauce.html
You have everything there from a 200 degree oven to a 450 degree oven and skinning or not skinning, putting the garlic in aluminum foil and all sorts of fussing; the common denominator being to skin them first, spread the pan with aluminum foil and add whatever you want as far as onions or garlic or herbs. I had about 2 dozen tomatoes of all sizes, mostly of the Best Boy variety. I also used two green peppers and two small zucchini from my garden, 2 onions, a whole head of garlic.
I was attracted to the 'caramelized onion' idea; knew the fiance would like that. And all of them mention 'scraping the browned bits' once roasting is done but after having two large cookie sheets with sides in the oven at 250 for almost an hour, it was readily apparent that there was way too much juice in the pans to allow anything to caramelize so I turned the oven up to 400. Much better; soon the house started smelling like an Italian eatery.
Keeping a close eye on both pans and wondering if I'd've gotten more caramelization if the pans weren't so crowded, I stirred and turned everything so that browned bits would be buried and more could brown. This went on for almost two hours before I decided they were done.
Then I drained off the liquid...did I mention how very much liquid there was in these tomatoes? I drained off nearly a quart and a half of tomatoey-juice to add back into the sauce later after I'd pureed it. I put smallish batches of the roasted veggies into my Cuisinart and pureed them, dumping each batch into the big stew pot on my stove. When that was done, I turned on the heat to low, added back in the juice and started adding herbs and seasonings.
Now, I use strictly Penzey's spices. Yes, I do. They're well worth it and I wish like mad that we had a Penzey's shop anywhere in Oklahoma! They really cost less than the crap you get in the grocery store and taste 10 times better. Do a cinnamon sniff test sometime comparing 'regular' spice you buy at WalMart and the China Cassia Cinnamon from Penzey's...careful, you could get whiplash from how powerful the smell is of the good stuff! Anyway...
I sauteed a bit more garlic in butter and then in the same pan, reduced about 3/4 cup of leftover red wine that I had in my 'frig for just such an occasion and added that to the sauce. I kept tasting and adding spices and sea salt and freshly ground pepper....lots of it, more than I expected that I'd need. Please don't ask me for amounts; I can't give them to you since I just add stuff until it tastes right!
Finally I stirred in two small cans of tomato paste because it needed some 'red', a small amount of sugar and called it done.
That took me all afternoon and evening but I ended up with 2-1/2 quarts of lovely sauce. The next day I made lasagne and it was nummy! I still have 1-1/2 quarts of sauce left. I'll pick some more tomatoes, do the same thing and this time, sterilize the jars and can them properly so that they don't have to stay in the freezer where I'll forget about them.
Next time I make it or when I bring the sauce out of the freezer, I'm adding some honey to make it a bit less tangy. I read somewhere recently here that adding honey solved the problem of a nnot-quite-right seasoning dilemma.