Roasted Tomato Pasta Sauce

We're starting to be overrun with tomatoes!  The Health Kick and Classica tomatoes are heavy with fruit and they're ripening faster than I can deal with them.  Fortunately, they seem to not mind waiting!  I have a big basket of ripe plum tomatoes sitting on the counter and all are still in excellent condition in spite of the fact they've been there for several days now.

I decided to try making a roasted tomato pasta sauce and had all the ingredients for my first trial ready in the garden.  Roasting brings out sweetness and richness in the vegetables and roasting over time helps reduce the moisture content, resulting in a thick sauce.

I used about a dozen or so tomatoes in this first batch, 4 cloves of garlic, one onion and a few small carrots for sweetness to balance out the acid in the tomatoes.  A couple of sprigs of basil were added for the herb.

The tomatoes were quartered, onion peeled and quartered and the carrots added whole.  I smashed the garlic cloves with the flat of a knife to easily remove the dry skin, then roughly chopped them along with the basil.  The veggies and herbs were placed in a large ceramic lasagna pan - but any non-metal pan would do.  Finally I drizzled about 1/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil over them and tossed to combine.  Oven heated to 350F, the pan was popped in.

I stirred the veggies at 30 minute intervals and at 1 1/2 hours, judged that they were ready to process. At this point, I could have processed the sauce with my food mill, but decided to put the whole shebang in the food processor instead.  I hate to waste anything!

After a minute or so in the food processor, I added salt and pepper.  The resulting sauce is thick and delicious!  I can keep it in the fridge for up to 5 days, or freeze it in meal-sized batches.

This is a very versatile sauce and is limited only by your imagination.  For the sweetness, you can add the traditional carrot, or instead try a plum or pear.  I didn't have any ripe peppers for this batch, but that would be an excellent addition for another time.  And herbs can be changed up - try thyme or oregano.  Plum tomatoes aren't vital, and if all you have are lots of beefsteak or cherry tomatoes, by all means use them.  If the sauce is a bit thin, just cook it down a bit after blending.  The end result is the same; a delicious homemade sauce with no preservatives or ingredients you can't pronounce!  And you did it yourself!

The Seeds Are Here!

Seeds for the 2014 Garden

So that must mean that spring is fast approaching.  At least I'll tell myself that.  It's the end of January and there's still a lot of winter left.

I ordered seeds from T & T Seeds this year as they carry Health Kick Tomatoes.  I ordered 2 packages of them in case they're hard to find next year.  In addition, I'm trying out another paste tomato, Classica.  Just to finish off, I ordered a package of Pink Swirl Impatiens from the Super Elfin series.  Every garden needs some flowers and these will be great in pots around the pond.

The West Coast Seeds order is, of course, the big one and they had everything I asked for:

Beets - Cylindra
Carrots - Royal Cantenay and Scarlet Nantes
Corn - Bodacious
Kale - Improved Siberian & Redbor
Leeks - Bandit
Lettuce - Drunken Woman (!), Red Sails and Simpson Elite
Onions - Copra
Peas - Oregon Sugar Pod 2
Squash - Waltham Butternut
Swiss Chard - Silverado and Bright Lights
Tomato - Principe Borghese and Sweet Million

So now the planning begins!  Today I turned over another bed and mulched the garlic which is well up.  We checked out the Three Sisters bed which is on its last legs.  We'll be able to get one more year out of it and next year it will be replaced with one long bed which will be at least 4' wide.  I also checked out the bed that has cedar roots creeping in through a crack and sure enough, there are lots!  That bed will have to be dealt with next.  Then I need to sit down and decide what will go where.  Crop rotation is important and root crops need to be followed by non-root crops.  One of the new 4x4 beds will be for potatoes - just enough to satisfy the craving for those delicious new baby potatoes!

Plans!  The bed which is growing garlic will also host some early spring planting and I'm going to try getting some lettuce going now.  I'll start it in the house and once it's up, transplant it to pots in the potting shed.  When they're strong enough, they'll be planted in the garlic bed and protected with hot caps.

In February - that's next week! - I'll start kale, leeks and onions.  Near the end of the month, I'll get the tomatoes started.  I won't grow as many as last year, but concentrate on cherries and romas.  This year I'm determined to get several batches of salsa to go with the pasta sauces.  I also want to grow some on the deck and bought some really big pots from Lee Valley last fall along with special grids to go under them to protect the deck.  They'll grow cherries tomatoes and basil.

This is the really exciting time for gardeners - planning!  Soon enough will come the hard work.

Zippy Salsa

Salsa!

A number of years ago I started making my own salsa.  I was using a mix made by Bernardin which produced a lovely spicy salsa.  I didn't follow their directions exactly (what else is new!) and added my own onions and sometimes peppers I'd grown as well.  Unfortunately, last year they discontinued that mix and put out a new one which looked very different.  As I didn't have enough tomatoes last year, I didn't bother trying it out but this year, there are lots of tomatoes on hand as well as some great peppers.

My husband's cousin had also been making the salsa using Bernardin's mix and this year she tried the new one but was very disappointed with the results.  She found a new recipe on the Internet, so I decided to search out one as well.  Of course, I tried Canadian Living first and found one called Peppy Salsa which had very good comments and even a video to show you how to make the salsa.

I had the tomatoes, onions, garlic and jalapeno peppers thanks to the gift of a plant from a friend.  Jollity Farms proved to be a good source for medium heat peppers, although they didn't have the peppers called for in the recipe.

Six kinds of peppers chopped up!

I bought pepperonchini, Hungarian wax and another red pepper the name of which escapes me.  I got sweet red and yellow peppers from the grocery store.

All the ingredients ready to cook up.

My daughter scared me when she blanched at all the peppers in the recipe so I decided to halve it, which gave me 6 sealed 1-cup jars and a half jar for the fridge.  Now that I've made it and tasted it, next time, I'll do the full recipe.  It's pretty good!  I call mine Zippy Salsa because I didn't make it exactly as Canadian Living's recipe dictated, but here's the link to their recipe:  SALSA! 

Harvesting Tomatoes

Cherry tomatoes - Sweet Baby Girl, Gold Nugget and Honey Bee

After our usual dry summer we've had a nice spell of rain.  Nothing waters the ground like rain.  I've been keeping the tomatoes well hydrated, but when I went up to pick tomatoes today, there were lots of cherry tomatoes with cracks.  It happens every time!  Since these tomatoes need to be dealt with immediately, I decided to make tomato sauce with them.  Cherry tomatoes make delicious sauces.  The ingredients were all immediately to hand - tomatoes, onions, garlic and basil.  You can vary it with peppers, thyme and add other ingredients such as carrots, zucchini - whatever takes your fancy.  Here's how I made it today:

Simple Tomato Sauce

3 quarts of cherry tomatoes
1 large onion, roughly chopped
3 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
3 Tbsp olive oil
3 quarts of cherry tomatoes, stems removed, of course!
handful of basil leaves - chiffonaded*
Salt & pepper to taste and you can add a little sugar as well

Saute the onions in olive oil until they are partly softened.  Then add the garlic and continue sauteing until softened.  Add the cherry tomatoes.  I didn't chop them, just squashed them a little to hasten the breakdown.  Simmer until the mixture has thickened somewhat.  Cool slightly and blend in a food processor.  Put back in the pan and add the basil.  Reheat until the basil is limp and season with salt and pepper.  A little sugar will balance the acidity although cherry tomatoes already have sweetness.  Cool, package and freeze.

I place two-soup ladle scoop amounts in ziplock bags which yields sufficient sauce for two-person spaghetti meals.

* How to chiffonade:  roll the leaves up into a bundle and slice thinly with a sharp knife.  You wind up with thin ribbons of basil which will provide flavour, texture and colour to your sauce.

Oxtail Soup

Yes, really!  Well, I had to buy the oxtails, barley and celery.  Nearly all the rest of the ingredients came from my garden.

Next week, my grandson and his father are coming for a visit while his mother presents at a conference.  My grandson is at that toddler stage in which meat is an anathema.  Some time ago when he was visiting, he really tucked into a bowl of oxtail soup, so I'm hoping this soup will be received with the same relish as last time.

Whenever I make it, this soup is just a little different based upon what I have on hand at the time.  With lots of fresh vegetables available in the garden, there was an abundance to choose from today.  A picking of beans  revealed a number hidden in the leaves which were a little too advanced - they'll soften nicely in the soup.  One Scarlet Nantes carrot sufficed - it was huge!  The dried tomatoes were from last year.  Since this soup takes time to make, I've put the recipe in steps.  It might sound complicated, but it's not and the resulting soup is one of my favourites.  Here's how I made it today:

Oxtail Soup

Step One
4 big oxtails
3 litres of water
2 Tbsp olive oil

In a large pot, bring the water to a boil. Meanwhile, pat the oxtails dry and heat the olive oil in a large frying pan.  Sear the oxtails.  Contrary to what I used to think, this doesn't keep the moisture in.  It caramelizes the outer layer of the meat and lends richness of flavour and colour to the dish.  Put the oxtails in the water, bring back to the boil, then lower the temperature and simmer slowly until the meat falls off the bone.  Don't forget to scrape the frying pan for all the extra bits to add to the soup!  The simmering will probably take about 4 hours.  Take the pot off the stove, cool and then refrigerate overnight.  The fat will congeal on the top, making removal easy.  Next morning, remove the fat.  Take the meat off the bones (which you'll discard along with excess fat) and chop it up small.

Step Two

2 stalks of celery, diced
3 handfuls of dried tomatoes
2 handfuls of barley (pot or pearl - I had pearl on hand)
1 large onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tbsp olive oil

Bring the broth up to a boil (you may have to add more water if the broth has lost a lot) and lower the temperature to a simmer.  Add the chopped meat, barley, dried tomatoes and celery.  In a frying pan, sauté the onion and garlic in the olive oil until the onion is golden brown.  Again, you're caramelizing the onion.  Add to the soup and simmer until the barley is tender.  This will probably take another half hour.

Step Three

1 very large carrot cut in 1/2" chunks
1 cup of sliced beans.
Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper to taste

Add the carrot and beans and simmer until tender.  Then add the Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper to taste.

This soup freezes very well.