Tomato day!
Last week at the store, dad said, you should make sauce this weekend! And he bought stuff like a green pepper, onion, package of mushrooms. Great. Except who says I want to make sauce this weekend? I ended up getting a bee in my bonnet about the closet and worked on that instead, thinking maybe I'd make sauce during the week.
Hint: I didn't make sauce during the week.
Meanwhile, the pile of tomatoes began to grow. First there was one bowl on the deck table; then the tower inside of it grew; and then a second bowl appeared. Yeah, I should plan on doing this Saturday.
Oh look, it's Saturday.
Pretty much as soon as we got the groceries put away this morning--and I fortified myself with an Entenmann's apple cider doughnut, heh--I set about roasting vegetables. I dunno; I thought it might give the veggies more flavor. I had two 9"x13" baking pans holding ten halved tomatoes each, plus a baking sheet with a green and red pepper (red was new today), quartered lengthwise; the sliced mushrooms; the sweet onion, halved; and three cloves of garlic (new today), with the tops cut off and settled into a ramekin covered in foil. Everything got drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with salt and pepper (the garlic didn't get pepper, though), then chucked into the oven for 40 minutes at 425F. It was two sets of 20 minutes; I did turn the baking sheet, but decided against the pans because they were too awkward to move. Realize I was also making a tomato tart and had started prepping for that, so counter and stove top space were at a premium; I didn't have the room to take them out, turn them around, and stick them back in like I originally planned. I think they turned out okay, but I probably could've left them in a little longer. The only thing I'd do differently would be with the mushrooms; I'd buy whole ones and halve them. Otherwise, I think that went fine.
Once out, I let everything cool while the tart cooked, after having shifted everything around so I had a place for stuff. It was also nice to have a little break from standing in the kitchen, and my parents appreciated me making lunch. They were really surprised that in the middle of everything I was doing, I also made time for a tart. Hey, I bought those supplies last week, and we have plenty of tomatoes. Might as well.
Back to sauce. Now that everything had cooled, most of it was ready to be handled. The tomato halves got scooped right into my big pot. The roasted vegetables, I cut them into smaller chunks--but still chunks--and they went into the big pot too. I had the most fun with the garlic, squeezing it out of the bulbs. Some of the cloves retained their shape, but some were more like a paste; that was fun. And it smelled pretty good, too. (Dad had grabbed at the garlic ramekin soon after it came out of the oven, before I'd taken the foil off, and slightly burned his hand. He didn't have any tart for a while, by the time I'd finished my slices and was dealing with the veggies, and I went, are you going to have any tart? Do you want to come smell the garlic? He said, once burned, twice shy! But he did come over to breathe in the fragrance when he got some tart. I know my dad. I knew he'd want to smell it, heh.)
I started simmering the items in the pot while grabbing more tomatoes, fresh, this time quartering them before tossing them in. I think I used about 30 tomatoes total. Dad had also grabbed me some fresh basil and oregano from the garden. I'd sprinkled some of the basil onto the tart, but otherwise the rest of it went in the sauce. I did add some red pepper flakes, but otherwise I kept it simple--salt, some pepper, a little sugar, and the olive oil from the garlic ramekin. I tried to remove a bunch of the liquid and had one of the baking pans at least 2/3 full of liquid drained from the pot, but I remembered how thick one of the batches turned out last year and didn't try to remove it all. I also added two cans of tomato paste so it was nice and thick, but not too thick. After about half an hour, I pulled out the immersion blender and broke down the big chunks for a little over a minute, and tada! I made enough for eight containers.
Dad purposely didn't plant many tomato plants this year; there weren't any cherry tomatoes, to my disappointment, but it's a lot of work and he wanted to keep things simple this year. I think there's four plants. We still have seven tomatoes remaining from the two bowls (I used four for the tart, so close to three dozen all told), and a few on the vines still. I don't know if there will be a second batch in the offing, but that's okay. Eight containers still helps. I just hope it tastes good. I'm curious to see if I should do the roasting bit again; it seemed to go pretty easily aside from all the chopping.
Hint: I didn't make sauce during the week.
Meanwhile, the pile of tomatoes began to grow. First there was one bowl on the deck table; then the tower inside of it grew; and then a second bowl appeared. Yeah, I should plan on doing this Saturday.
Oh look, it's Saturday.
Pretty much as soon as we got the groceries put away this morning--and I fortified myself with an Entenmann's apple cider doughnut, heh--I set about roasting vegetables. I dunno; I thought it might give the veggies more flavor. I had two 9"x13" baking pans holding ten halved tomatoes each, plus a baking sheet with a green and red pepper (red was new today), quartered lengthwise; the sliced mushrooms; the sweet onion, halved; and three cloves of garlic (new today), with the tops cut off and settled into a ramekin covered in foil. Everything got drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with salt and pepper (the garlic didn't get pepper, though), then chucked into the oven for 40 minutes at 425F. It was two sets of 20 minutes; I did turn the baking sheet, but decided against the pans because they were too awkward to move. Realize I was also making a tomato tart and had started prepping for that, so counter and stove top space were at a premium; I didn't have the room to take them out, turn them around, and stick them back in like I originally planned. I think they turned out okay, but I probably could've left them in a little longer. The only thing I'd do differently would be with the mushrooms; I'd buy whole ones and halve them. Otherwise, I think that went fine.
Once out, I let everything cool while the tart cooked, after having shifted everything around so I had a place for stuff. It was also nice to have a little break from standing in the kitchen, and my parents appreciated me making lunch. They were really surprised that in the middle of everything I was doing, I also made time for a tart. Hey, I bought those supplies last week, and we have plenty of tomatoes. Might as well.
Back to sauce. Now that everything had cooled, most of it was ready to be handled. The tomato halves got scooped right into my big pot. The roasted vegetables, I cut them into smaller chunks--but still chunks--and they went into the big pot too. I had the most fun with the garlic, squeezing it out of the bulbs. Some of the cloves retained their shape, but some were more like a paste; that was fun. And it smelled pretty good, too. (Dad had grabbed at the garlic ramekin soon after it came out of the oven, before I'd taken the foil off, and slightly burned his hand. He didn't have any tart for a while, by the time I'd finished my slices and was dealing with the veggies, and I went, are you going to have any tart? Do you want to come smell the garlic? He said, once burned, twice shy! But he did come over to breathe in the fragrance when he got some tart. I know my dad. I knew he'd want to smell it, heh.)
I started simmering the items in the pot while grabbing more tomatoes, fresh, this time quartering them before tossing them in. I think I used about 30 tomatoes total. Dad had also grabbed me some fresh basil and oregano from the garden. I'd sprinkled some of the basil onto the tart, but otherwise the rest of it went in the sauce. I did add some red pepper flakes, but otherwise I kept it simple--salt, some pepper, a little sugar, and the olive oil from the garlic ramekin. I tried to remove a bunch of the liquid and had one of the baking pans at least 2/3 full of liquid drained from the pot, but I remembered how thick one of the batches turned out last year and didn't try to remove it all. I also added two cans of tomato paste so it was nice and thick, but not too thick. After about half an hour, I pulled out the immersion blender and broke down the big chunks for a little over a minute, and tada! I made enough for eight containers.
Dad purposely didn't plant many tomato plants this year; there weren't any cherry tomatoes, to my disappointment, but it's a lot of work and he wanted to keep things simple this year. I think there's four plants. We still have seven tomatoes remaining from the two bowls (I used four for the tart, so close to three dozen all told), and a few on the vines still. I don't know if there will be a second batch in the offing, but that's okay. Eight containers still helps. I just hope it tastes good. I'm curious to see if I should do the roasting bit again; it seemed to go pretty easily aside from all the chopping.