Monday, September 6, 2010

A Second Sauce

You'd think that I'd be in my element right now. What with the fact that every time I go outside to weed the garden I wind up coming in with a bowl of beauties like this:


Right?

And normally, with any standard family garden, you'd be right. Even though I'm only one person, I'd be able to take care of a single garden plot's worth of output.

The thing is, we don't have a single garden plot's worth of garden. We have about five standard garden plot's worth of plants. We're also blessed enough to have had our house built on a particularly fertile tract of old potato farm - and the remainder of that farm property now plays host to a large flock of sheep, some cows and our friendly neighbourhood donkey! So to put it simply, we have a lot of vegetables coming ripe by the end of Summer, more than even my mom and I (self-proclaimed veggie-holics) can contend with. Of particular excess every single season are the Romano beans and the tomatoes.

Oh. The. Tomatoes. We've even cut down on the amount of plants we put in this year, but even then we're still faced with 4 San Marzano, 4 Early Girl, and 4 Yellow Pear plants my stepdad bought as seedlings, and I started some gorgeous heirloom seeds for Black Prince, Green Zebra, Sasha's Altai and "Heirloom Mix" tomatoes on a whim (never thinking they'd all take). Well needless to say, they did all take, and they are all to die for delicious fresh - but while it is a crime to cook any perfect in season tomato at all, to me it's a far greater sin to let them sit and rot away to oblivion.
But I would never want to subject them to just stewing in a pot. And really, I wouldn't want them to be unduly overpowered by other ingredients in a standard sauce medium. No, if I was going to do sauce, not a passata as I have already done this year, I would keep it fairly simple, bringing out the delicious flavour of the fruit with a roast like before but adding in a few other gratuitous veggies we had around - after all sauces, as well as soups, are the great use-ups of the culinary world!


Roasted Triple - Tomato Sauce
Makes about 3 2/3 cups (875 mL). NI is for 1/3 cup servings
4 cloves garlic, peeled
27.5 oz fresh San Marzano tomatoes, halved lengthwise
1/2 medium red onion, cut into 4 pieces
1.2 oz red bell pepper, seeded and cut into roughly the same size as the tomato halves
1/2 tbsp olive oil
salt + pepper
1/2 cup dry red wine
3 sprigs fresh thyme, de-stemmed
2 oz sundried tomatoes, julienned
7.2 oz cucumber, coarsley grated
1/2 cup water
3 oz tomato paste (1/2 can)
pinch each oregano, basil and lemon-pepper
  1. Preheat oven to 400F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper or foil.
  2. Place garlic cloves on a square of foil and pour 1 tbsp of water overtop. Wrap garlic, sealing the foil packet and place on the bottom rack of the oven. Bake 10 minutes.
  3. Meanwhile, arrange tomato halves, onion and bell pepper on the lined sheets, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper.
  4. Place sheets in the oven and roast for 45 minutes.
  5. While vegetables are roasting, combine red wine, thyme, sundried tomatoes and cucumber in a large saucepan and bring to a simmer. Cook on low heat 20 minutes, stirring frequently.
  6. When vegetables and garlic are done, puree in a food processor and add to the stovetop mixture.
  7. Add 1/2 cup of water to the food processor and whirl it to "clean" out the workbowl, adding the tomatoey water to the pot as well.
  8. Bring to a simmer, stir in tomato paste, herbs and lemon pepper and cook, stirring, for 10 minutes.
  9. Cool and pour into jars, keep in the fridge, freeze or can in a waterbath.
Amount Per Serving
Calories: 54.3
Total Fat: 1.1 g
Cholesterol: 0.0 mg
Sodium: 175.5 mg
Total Carbs: 9.3 g
Dietary Fiber: 2.0 g
Protein: 2.0 g

3 comments :

  1. Hey Sarah, those are beauties! And, wow, I don't know how you guys take care of all of the gardens and such. I can barely manage one large garden for my Mom.
    Anyway, your sauce looks great, and I'm glad I clicked over from Foodista...!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hey,
    Its really a delicious recipes i wanna to taste it ASAP.
    Thanks
    Cookbooks

    ReplyDelete
  3. What a fantastic recipe! Thanks for sharing.

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for the feedback!