Home made versatility - roast tomato sugo - www.cooks-notebook.com.au

I absolutely love tomato sauce – the sort that goes with spaghetti, over chicken parm, into a soup. Not the ketchup variety. Although that is pretty good on a sausage roll or two. And that is also even better when homemade. Not that I have ever made it. One day I will…

No, I’m talking about the tomato sauce that comes from beautiful fresh tomatoes. Now while tomatoes are a summer fruit [yes, fruit. Not veg. But don’t add to a fruit salad. That is very wrong…], our local fruit and veg store currently has them in abundance. I’m going to say this is because I live in Queensland where seasonal fruit has a different meaning to seasonal fruit in a city where you actually have seasons. Anyone in Brissie this week will know what I mean. [27c anyone? anyone? Bueller?)

So anyway, back to my local F&V. Last week I picked up about 5 kilos of must-be-eaten-immediately tomatoes for about $10. Not as cheap as in summer, but given the current price of about $9 a kilo I was pretty pleased. As it is winter [technically] they don’t have as much flavour as their beautiful summer compadres. So I decided to make a roast tomato sugo.

What I used:

5kg tomatoes, washed, core removed [I had a mix of the everyday round variety, some Roma and a few heirloom cherry tomatoes and other varieties that I found languishing at the bottom of the veggie crisper]
2-3 red onions, peeled, cut into quarters
5-6 cloves of garlic, peeled, smashed, cut in half
olive oil
salt and pepper

What I did

It’s pretty easy!

Preheat the oven to 160c [and preheating isn’t even necessary. It just sounds “cheffy”].

Chuck all the ingredients into a large baking tray, make sure the garlic is covered by the tomatoes so it doesn’t dry out, and pop in the oven to cook for about 3 hours. I gave it a stir every 45-60 minutes or so.

Once it’s cooked down, take it out of the oven, and let it cool.

Once cool, pop it into a bowl and blend up with a stick blender, or pop it into a bench blender [or thermomix] and whiz it up.

This is about half the sauce

Use as necessary! I popped most of it into varying sized portions and froze it. You could also bottle it, I just couldn’t be bothered on this particular day!

I reckon this would be pretty good as a soup, or as a tomato sauce for a lasagne, spaghetti bol, or anything else you would normally open a can of tomatoes for.

What do you love tomato sauce with?

Comments

Karen S Booth says

August 17, 2012 at 12:45 pm

What a FABULOUS and tasty recipe and so colourful too; I have a GLUT of tomatoes right now, so I am bookmarking this to make! Karen at Lavender and Lovage PS: I LOVE your blog too!

Deb says

August 18, 2012 at 12:55 am

This looks delicious. I’d add it to mince for a bolognese sauce (rather than the bottled stuff I usually use!) or I’d use it with my recently-discovered gluten-free ravioli.

Yummm… thanks for sharing!

Deb

Lolly says

August 21, 2012 at 8:33 am

Sounds cheffy hehehe

Looks delish.. going to have to whip some up this coming summer

The Food Sage says

August 22, 2012 at 2:09 am

Can’t wait for this summer’s tomato glut so i can put this to the test. Lovely work. Thanks for sharing.

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September 18, 2012 at 10:11 am

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