No, I'm talking about the tomato sauce that comes from beautiful fresh tomatoes. Now while tomatoes are a summer fruit [yes, fruit. Not veg. But don't add to a fruit salad. That is very wrong...], our local fruit and veg store currently has them in abundance. I'm going to say this is because I live in Queensland where seasonal fruit has a different meaning to seasonal fruit in a city where you actually have seasons. Anyone in Brissie this week will know what I mean. [27c anyone? anyone? Bueller?)
So anyway, back to my local F&V. Last week I picked up about 5 kilos of must-be-eaten-immediately tomatoes for about $10. Not as cheap as in summer, but given the current price of about $9 a kilo I was pretty pleased. As it is winter [technically] they don't have as much flavour as their beautiful summer compadres. So I decided to make a roast tomato sugo.
What I used:
- 5kg tomatoes, washed, core removed [I had a mix of the everyday round variety, some Roma and a few heirloom cherry tomatoes and other varieties that I found languishing at the bottom of the veggie crisper]
- 2-3 red onions, peeled, cut into quarters
- 5-6 cloves of garlic, peeled, smashed, cut in half
- olive oil
- salt and pepper
What I did
It's pretty easy!
Preheat the oven to 160c [and preheating isn't even necessary. It just sounds "cheffy"].
Chuck all the ingredients into a large baking tray, make sure the garlic is covered by the tomatoes so it doesn't dry out, and pop in the oven to cook for about 3 hours. I gave it a stir every 45-60 minutes or so.
Once it's cooked down, take it out of the oven, and let it cool.
Once cool, pop it into a bowl and blend up with a stick blender, or pop it into a bench blender [or thermomix] and whiz it up.
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| This is about half the sauce |
Use as necessary! I popped most of it into varying sized portions and froze it. You could also bottle it, I just couldn't be bothered on this particular day!
I reckon this would be pretty good as a soup, or as a tomato sauce for a lasagne, spaghetti bol, or anything else you would normally open a can of tomatoes for.
What do you love tomato sauce with?
