tomatoes | organised castle

Yesterday I picked 2 kg of cherry tomatoes from the bushes that grow wild in various parts of our garden.

Firstly, I removed the stalks and rinsed them and then added the 1.5 kg that were already prepared and frozen from a couple of weeks ago. It was time to make some tomato sauce (ketchup). The recipe is super simple and is written near the end of this post.

Home-grown cherry tomatoes have a very short shelf life so unless you are feeding an army, it makes sense to freeze the excess immediately or otherwise they go to waste rather quickly.

You will need a large saucepan or stockpot depending on the quantity of tomatoes that you are processing. Mine is a stainless steel one with a heavy base which helps to stop the food burning. This is important because by their very nature, most jams, pickles and preserves have a high proportion of sugar. Many of the old-style preserving pans are aluminium, however, I do not use aluminium for perceived health reasons.

Apart from the tomatoes, you will need a few other ingredients.

Here is the recipe.

TOMATO SAUCE

Ingredients

3kg ripe tomatoes
15g whole cloves
15g whole allspice
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
250ml vinegar
375g sugar
60g salt
500g onions

Method

Place the cloves and allspice in a muslin bag. Roughly chop the onions and tomatoes. Place all ingredients in the stockpot and simmer for approximately 2 hours, stirring regularly. Remove spice bag and discard. Strain or process mixture in a blender to required consistency.

Return mixture to a clean saucepan and bring to the boil for 5 minutes before pouring into warm, sterilised jars. Seal jars and store appropriately.

Notes

When using cherry tomatoes for this recipe there is no need to chop them.

I used chilli powder instead of cayenne, powdered instead of whole allspice and I always use raw sugar. The powdered spices and raw sugar tend to make the finished product slightly darker.

I use a hand-held stick blender to process the mixture. Whatever method you use, be very careful when handling the hot liquid as it can be unpredictable.

The original recipe can be found here. It is also in Sally Wise’s book, ‘A Year in A Bottle’.

This is a tasty tomato sauce which bears no resemblance to the commercial varieties. Enjoy!

I have had a very productive weekend. Following on from yesterday’s post about the Tabasco sauce I wanted to show you my other achievements in the kitchen.

The bell chillies were dried and the 4 trays of sliced chillies ended up reducing to this.

I then ground them in the spice grinder attachment for my food processor.

This is what I ended up with. 45g of powdered chilli – grown about 20 metres from the back door with no chemical sprays. The smaller jar is the residue after I had sieved it mixed with some avocado oil. I will use the chilli oil to add a little bit of flavour when cooking.

Today we went to the Caboolture Markets. I bought the fruit and vegetables that I needed as well as 9kg of tomatoes. These were being sold for 99c/kg so I filled my Ecosilk bag.

I decided to make tomato pasta sauce that I will be able to use in a variety of ways. The ingredients are tomatoes, onions, basil, tomato paste and red wine. The onions were from our crop last winter which were diced and frozen, the basil from the garden, tomato paste and red wine from the cupboard.

I forgot to take any photos as I was working flat out to get this done this afternoon but here is the end result.

The sauce in the plastic containers will be frozen and the jars of sauce were processed in a hot water bath so they will be stored in the cupboard. This was my first attempt at processing anything in a hot water bath. I am confident that it has worked well as the pop-tops have all been vacuum sealed.

I am definitely going to do some more research and learn more about this method. It means that I can preserve food without using the freezer and being reliant on a consistent supply of electricity. There is also a small matter of available space in the freezer, too.

Any tips or recommendations of resources on preserving would be appreciated.