Tomatoes are coming out of the garden by the basketful now. We've got tomatoes ripening on our counter as we speak. We will try our best not to get behind this year and lose any of our produce. Last year we ended up freezing a bunch of tomatoes and canned them later. This year, we are being more proactive.
We took our Roma tomatoes and made a nice tomato paste. First we blanched them.
Then we milled them using an attachment on our KitchenAid mixer (This made it SO easy and quick and removed all of the seeds and skins! Big bowl is the sauce; small bowl is the skin and seeds).
Then we baked the paste down to the desired consistency.
We then poured the mixture into these containers we use for freezing liquids. This is what 3-4 lbs of Roma tomatoes cooked down to...SMH.
Lastly, we pop the frozen liquid out of those containers into freezer bags. This way we can pull out a cup at a time.
We followed the exact same steps for tomato sauce. However, we added 2 cloves of our homegrown garlic, about 1/4 cup of olive oil, and salt and italian seasoning to taste. If I had any (Olive Garden) breadsticks this sauce may not have made it into the freezer. It was delicious and the garlic gave it the kick it needed!
Wow, that is not much paste is it? I didn't know that it was baked. I would have to do mine some other way as we just don't use the oven in summer if we don't have to. I will be very pleased if I get to make some spaghetti sauce some day but I am not sure we will have enough tomatoes for that this year.
ReplyDeleteYou can cook it on top of the stove as well using one of the burners. I think it just takes longer on top of the stove. In the baking dish it is more spread out, so it cooks down faster. We had some other stuff in there with it, so we knocked out a few things at a time. But the house was hot..whew.
DeleteMy mum keeps bringing me bottles of the passata she made with her crop this year. One day I will grow enough to make mey own but it just didn't happen this year.
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