Easy Peasy Tomato Passata, From Tomatoes You May Have Lying Around at Home

Upon rereading the last post, it occurs to me that from the dreadful whining, anyone would suppose I run a small farm, and am dragging in bushel baskets of produce every day. The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth is that I have a small suburban garden, and that the tomatoes above are three days' accumulation from seven tomato plants, yes seven. Hardly an agribusiness quite yet. The apples and pears I am using up are only the windfalls I collect from the ground every morning, about ten each per day. So don't feel tooo sorry for me. And I did plant all this of my own free will.. and I love it, and am very grateful for food from my very own yard.

Another thing I am very grateful for today - rain. Wonderful, glorious, steady gentle rain. Hours of it. The garden is so happy. And it is perfect weather for making the world's easiest tomato passata thingy. Frances mentioned in the comments that she freezes her tomatoes whole, and makes tomato sauce through the winter. That is an absolutely marvellous idea, but I don't have enough freezer space, so I make this sauce instead, which reduces it in size considerably, then freeze it.

First, I chop up all those impatient tomatoes.

 

 

And stew them, mashing them periodically with the potato masher. Don't add any liquid, they'll provide plenty of their own.

 



When they look like this, I keep them gently bubbling for another half hour or so, until the liquid is reduced a bit, and the skins translucent. Then I get to work with the stick blender until the skins are completely liquidized.

 

 

Now I bag the sauce up in 400g (18oz) lots so I can substitute it for tins of diced tomato in recipes.

 

 

 

 

Then freeze the bags flat on a baking tray so they stack well in the freezer.

 

 

 

 

The final product, all ready to be turned into bolognese sauce..

 

 

 

Future dinners in the freezer are so satisfying.

 

No tomato was wasted in the creation of this blog post.