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Old August 20, 2011   #68
fortyonenorth
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Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: NW Indiana
Posts: 1,150
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I don't have a pressure canner or one of those very cool Victorios (have that on the list for next year) but we've been using a simple method for preserving sauce that's served us well over the last three years. It's extraordinarily easy and the results are heavenly. I've never found any reason to look for another recipe.

3-4 pounds tomatoes (cored)
1 medium onion
2-3 cloves garlic
large pinch of dried herb (your choice, we generally omit this ingredient for our "base" sauce and add later, depending on what we're using it for)
1/4 cup olive oil
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
3-4 hot peppers (optional - we use jalapenos or other med-hot peppers, whatever we have available)

Slice tomatoes into plum sized pieces and place them face down on baking pan or dish. Arrange onions and garlic over the top, drizzle with EVOO and season with salt and pepper. Place in 375 degree oven for 1 1/2 to 2 hours. The longer the cooking time, the more reduced the final product.

Remove from oven, allow to cool and then run through food mill to remove skins. You can discard the skins or mill them in a blender or food processor, if you prefer a chunkier sauce. Depending on the tomatoes that I've used - whether they are juicy or meaty - I will sometimes reduce the finished sauce on the stovetop for a few hours - or more if you want pizza sauce or paste. Generally, when I use a generic mix of heirlooms, I find that the 2-hour baking produces a nice finished sauce that doesn't require this additional step.

Measure finished sauce into freezer bags (we double bag) and freeze. I don't know how long it keeps frozen - we've generally use it up by February or March, so it keeps at least six months.

Obviously, you can scale this to whatever amount of tomatoes you have on hand. I've been doing 20-25 pounds at a time and this seems to work well in terms of being "worth the effort."
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