Tomatoes Out Of Season

Back in the summer months I was saving any soft tomatoes from the vegie patch and freezing them.

Now the colder months are here and the tomato season has come to an end. There is no reason why Pat & I still can't enjoy our home grown tomatoes.






Even though the tomatoes defrosted are on the soggy side, add a couple of sliced onions and what ever herbs you want. Cook until tender and thicken with a small amount of corn flour.



A lovely tomato & onion meal with some home made bread toasted makes for a great lunch. Its full of that home grown tomato flavour.

Until next time....hoo roo

technorati tags: bread, tomato, food savings

Tomato Surplus

I had a gut feeling (pardon the pun) that I was going to do so well with this season's tomatoes. Well I have done exactly that.

Today I made 4 kilo of my own organic tomatoes into sauce. Last year was my first time making sauce and this was from home grown tomatoes given to us.

This year.....





Tomatoes, onion, ginger cooking away before the last ingredients are added. Once again I have used the Ezy-sauce recipe on the bottle.




Three smaller bottles are for Deb, Josephine & Amy. Five big bottles are for Pat & myself. More so me as I lurv tomato sauce. I had been saving the last of 2008 sauce for special meals. Now I can be a bit more free with it.

Just need to make labels and once cool, stick them on and pop it away in the pantry.

This is where taking food from the garden to our plate makes all those hours in the garden worth while. I feel a sense of pride when I look at the end product and think..... wow I grew and cooked that.

Until next time....hoo roo

technorati tags: tomato, tomato sauce

My Lunch Today

Tigerella and Black Russian tomatoes sliced on some cracker biscuits for my lunch. Simple and so enjoyable, savoring the flavours of these home grown tomatoes.

Pretty well.... eating our own tomatoes now into the new year.

technorati tags: tomato

Tomato Sauce

I'm kicking myself as I didn't think to take a photo of all 6 kilo of tomatoes I was given yesterday from a friend. The closest I have come to home grown tomatoes this season, my plants are not producing much fruit. To the stage I have given up on them, so when my friend called, I said thank you and yes to the tomatoes right away.


These few left over tomatoes will be not wasted, into the freezer they will go for use in the winter months.


4.5 kilo of tomatoes, 680 grams of apples and onion won't fit into the largest saucepan I had in the house. So to start off I had to use 2 saucepans.



Once the cooking had reduced the volume size into the biggest pot and away went the cooking.



Just about ready for the ezy-sauce, sugar and salt.



All cooked and ready for the stick mixer to blend to a smooth mixture. If you use a stick mixer, just watch the wrist action...... sauce can splash over the wall near the stove. This will result in rude words and extra cleaning up after the sauce is bottled.




All finished and bottled. The jar at the front is for our friend who gave us the tomatoes. She's not a big sauce eater and said only a small jar would be enough for her.

The recipe can be found here.

technorati tags: food savings, tomato, tomato sauce

Tomato & Pasta

Sorry about the meal half eaten. I was enjoying it so much and then thought.... this would be good for my blog here.

It's a mixture of odds & ends from the garden.

In the summer months I like to try and freeze spare tomatoes for the winter, to be used in this manor. All those soft tomatoes aren't wasted in my house.

Use what ever amount of defrosted tomatoes and add the following in the amounts that suit you.

• sliced onion
• pasta
• basil fresh or dried
• oregano dried or fresh
• parsley fresh or dried
• parmesan cheese fresh or dried.
  
• diced eggplant
• diced celery

Really anything you want to add or use up, it's up to you. The pasta soaks up any liquid so it doesn't need thickening.

Put all of the food into a saucepan and cook until it's looking nice and soft. I added crushed garlic to my share after I had dished up Pat's serving. As he can't tolerate garlic.

So that's about it. pat had his dished up on toast and mine was with toast on a side plate.

technorati tags: tomato, pasta, herbs