Tomato Sauce

Vine-ripened tomatoes freshly plucked, still warm from the sun, sliced, drizzled with the best olive oil you can find, sprinkled with a little sea salt, and perfumed with hand-torn fresh basil are one of the many delights of the summer!  You can add slices of mozzarella bufala to it, and the Italians call it caprese, a meal on its own, with a good baguette to mop up the lingering olive oil.

Some years you could end up with more tomatoes you can possible eat and instead of letting them go to waste, you can cook them into a sauce to be frozen in 2-cup portions for a taste of the summer during the colder months.  It’s nice growing your own tomatoes but that takes time and effort.  Go to your local farmers’ market and check with those vendors who have heaps of tomatoes for sale during the peak of the season and ask them if they have ones which are too ripe to put out and how much they are willing to part with them.  They usually have them but you need to go around finding the best price per pound.  I was able to get them for between US$0.30 to 0.50 cents a pound.  A box full would weigh about 30 pounds.  Make sure they are not too small as it takes quite a bit of time to skin them and some of the large varieties are tasteless.  The ones that is about the size of a clenched fist are best.

10 lbs tomatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces
2 sticks (1/2 lbs) butter
2 tsp sugar
2 tsp salt
4 bay leaves
1 large onion, coarsely chopped, 1/2-inch pieces

Bring to a boil a large pot of water.  Place the tomatoes in the boiling water for about 2 minutes, remove with a slotted ladle, and set aside to cool slightly.  Repeat until all the tomatoes have gone through the hot bath.  When the tomatoes are cool enough to handle, using a paring knife, remove the stem end and peel the tomatoes.  Cut them into 1-inch chucks, or you can crush them with your hands in the pot.  Place them into a sauce pot large enough for all the tomatoes and the other ingredients.  Add the onions, butter, salt, sugar, and bay leaves and place the pot on high heat and bring it to a boil, uncovered.  When it boils, reduce the heat to a gentle simmer and stir it occasionally so that the bottom doesn’t burn until the mixture reduces to half, which may take several hours, if not longer depending on the pot and the heat.  As it gets closer to being done, stir it every 5 minutes so that the bottom does not burn.  When the sauce has been reduced to half, it should be on the thick side, with soft chunks of pulp and a nice shine on it’s surface, and tantalizingly fragrant!  You can’t resist boiling up some spaghetti and tossing in a ladle-full of the sauce!  Allow the sauce to cool, uncovered.  When cooled,pack the sauce in 2-cup portions in small Ziplock bags and place them in the freezer for future use.  10 pound of fresh tomatoes yield about 12 cups of sauce.  This sauce is an excellent base for pasta, soups, homemade pizzas, saganakis, and any recipe that calls for tomato sauce.