One reason I wanted to grow tomatoes in the garden this year was so I could make my own pasta sauce from scratch. I've never tried to do that, and my guy loves Italian, so it would be very helpful.
It's a lot of work, too. After picking our ripest tomatoes I blanched and peeled them, chopped them, added onion, garlic and spices, and cooked them over a low heat. I then pureed the cooked tomatoes, and finally spoon-pressed puree through a sieve to remove the seeds. All that took most of an afternoon, and was extremely messy.
Here is the result -- a little over two cups of pasta sauce. It tastes very good, although not that different from the canned stuff I use as the bases for my pasta sauces. Also, my guy can probably eat the whole thing in one sitting.
While I'm glad I can cross this off my cooking bucket list, I doubt I'll make sauce like this again. We can't grow enough tomatoes for me to make enough sauce to keep my guy satisfied, and the process is really too much work for such little reward.
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Every year though I dehydrate a lot of my tomatoes. They add another level of robust flavor to commercially canned sauce, chili, pizza, you name it.
Although there are some pretty fancy dehydrators out there, I picked up a very simple model for $1 at a garage sale. I've used the same one for nearly 30 years.
My niece bought one of the fancy ones. It does everything but put itself away.