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!

Dinner from the Garden

Tomorrow is the first day of summer - and today is the first day that most of the fixings came from the garden.  Not the chicken, of course, but the coating contains our own garlic and the herbs were picked from the pots on the deck.

Our first picking of snow peas, cooked tender crisp, and Seiglinde potatoes with just a smear of butter.  Absolutely delicious!

The coating for the chicken is really simple:  Panko crumbs, grated parmesan cheese, finely minced garlic and chopped fresh thyme, rosemary and parsley, all moistened with a little melted butter.  Smear the chicken pieces with Dijon mustard and then press into the coating.  Since the chicken pieces were thigh/leg combinations, I baked them for 45 minutes at 375F.

And to top it all off, Totem strawberries from the garden and vanilla ice cream!  What could be better?

Leek and Potato Soup

Now that I'm planning a Three Sisters Garden, I have to get the leeks out of one of the beds.  The easiest way to use leeks is to make leek and potato soup, which also happens to be one of my favorites.  My recipe is pretty simple:  equal weights of leeks and potatoes, soup stock and some seasoning.

I read somewhere on the Internet about adding a bouquet garni and using a couple of blades from the leeks as the container, so I decided to give it a try.  I made my bouquet garni with a couple of sprigs of thyme, a bay leaf, some peppercorns and 2 leek leaves.  (Note to self:  get a bay tree!)

Ingredients for a bouquet garni

It was a bit fiddly putting the bouquet garni together, but with a little help from my husband, I finally mastered it.  Next was preparing the leeks.  Since leeks are grown in a trench which is gradually filled up to get long white portions, they tend to get soil trapped in the layers.  I slice my leeks down their length and rinse them out, then chop them into sections.  A proper leek and potato soup uses only the white portions of the leek, but I'm not a purist so I cheat a bit.

Cleaned leeks and the bouquet garni

The chopped leeks are now sauteed for about 5 minutes in butter until they are wilted.

Sautee the leeks until wilted

Then place the leeks, peeled and quartered potatoes and the bouquet garni in the pot of soup stock.  I use enough soup stock to cover the ingredients.  You can always add more to a soup that's too thick.  It's harder to make a thin soup thicker!

Simmering soup

Bring the soup to a boil and then simmer until the potatoes are cooked through.  Remove the bouquet garni and puree until smooth.  A couple of the peppercorns escaped, but since they floated, it was an easy matter to remove them.  Finally, reheat the soup, season with salt and pepper to taste and serve.

The finished product

I served the finished soup with a dollop of sour cream and chopped chives.  Sometimes I add plain yogurt instead of the sour cream.  It's also fine without the dairy addition.  You can garnish with fresh chopped parsley as well.  A delicious soup that's easy and inexpensive to make!