Making Tomato Sauce

Making Tomato Sauce

Each year our main summer crop is tomatoes. As well as many months of fresh tomatoes we make lots of tomato sauce which is used throughout the year in lots of dishes. On pizza, pasta or rice, cooked with meatballs or added to many dishes to give some vegetable goodness.

This year we had even more tomato plants than before and now a polytunnel to grow some in so we have had a bumper crop. Last year we made over a hundred jars worth and still ran out. One of the reasons for this was that some of the jars failed. So this year I resolved to Vacola the sauce. The jars are therefore much bigger.

The recipe is fairly basic. Onions and garlic sauteed in oil, plenty of zucchini and lots of tomatoes. This year I have added lots of basil for flavour. Once it has come to the boil I leave it on the stove for a few hours simmering and reducing. Then it is poured into warm sterilised jars and then put into the Vacola.

So far we have 80 Vacola bottles made and seven bottle of ketchup sauce. We have given away two crates of tomatoes and there is still plenty left to ripen. Time to try some other sauce variety, I think, but we will never starve this winter. Yum.