This week I made tomato sauce from fresh tomatoes. It was a first for me. Despite my Italian heritage, most of the sauce we eat comes out of a jar or a can. I’ve always been intimidated by luscious homemade tomato sauce, also known in some families as gravy. But you know what? it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be.
The first step was the main ingredient: tomatoes. I had plenty of those, thanks to our local CSA. Actually, it was the tomatoes that inspired making the sauce. Next, I did a little research. I found that many people prefer one type of tomato over others for sauce. The most popular was the Roma tomato. I didn’t have to worry about this, since I was going to use up what I had available, which was a variety of different types, including yellow and orange tomatoes (I worried that the sauce would come out orange, but I needn’t have been concerned. Despite the plethora of yellow and orange tomatoes, the sauce took on the color of the red ones.
Next was the decision on the recipe. I looked through a bunch of different ones, both online and in print cookbooks. I wasn’t sure which one I would like to try when one came into my life through a friend with a reputation for being a good cook. Of course I had to use her recipe, which was both simple and used some good basic fresh herbs. Plus, the directions were pretty easy to follow.
The kids and I had fun putting this together. They enjoyed peeling the tomatoes (after blanching of course) and exclaimed over the icky feeling of cold peeled tomatoes), tore up the fresh herbs and helped cut the onions. After the prep work was done, I took over the actual cooking.
The house just smelled wonderful. The one thing that I did learn was that next time I will definitely need to double or triple the ingredients to make more of it!
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