Yesterday I turned some of my garden produce into a summery treat to be eaten in the dead of winter. The roasted vegetable pasta sauce filled the house with a deliciously rich aroma all day long. The recipe comes from The Complete Book of Year Round Small Batch Preserving, which I mentioned before when I made bread and butter pickles. The thing I like about this book, aside from the delicious recipes is you don't have to have 40 pounds of anything, although it is quite easy to multiply the recipes up in case your garden is wildly prolific. You can make just a few jars at a time and my husband loves it because he doesn't get called in to heave-ho any heavy pots of boiling liquid. Here is the recipe:
Roasted Vegetable Pasta Sauce
2 1/2 pounds plum tomatoes, unpeeled
4 cloves garlic, unpeeled
2 onions, unpeeled
1 sweet red pepper
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1 Tbsp chopped fresh oregano or 1 tsp dried
1tsp granulated sugar
1tsp salt
Prepare jars for canning by boiling them in a canner for about 10 minutes. Also boil both parts of the lids in a separate pan. This sterilizes the jars and lids. Leave them in canner until you are ready to fill them.
Place tomatoes, garlic, onions (I halve them) and red pepper on a lightly oiled baking sheet. Roast in a 450 degree oven for 45 minutes, removing the garlic after 12-15 minutes or when soft. Remove remaining vegetables when they are soft and the skins blistered. Let stand until cool enough to handle.
Peel tomatoes, being careful to catch all the juice. Squeeze garlic and onions to remove soft centers. Peel and seed pepper. Place all vegetables in a food processor, process until smooth.
Place vegetable puree in a large stainless steel or enamel saucepan. Add vinegar, oregano, sugar and salt. Bring to a boil over high heat, reduce heat, cover and boil for about 15 minutes, stirring frequently.
Remove hot jars from canner and ladle sauce into jars to within 1/2 inch of rim. Put lids on jars. Process 35 minutes for pint jars and 40 minutes for quart jars.
*I have found that this recipe makes two pint jars and every pound and a quarter of tomatoes you add you will get another pint. Of course if you increase the tomatoes you must also increase the other ingredients proportionally.
After making this sauce for a few years in the heat of my kitchen I decided to try freezing it instead. It works wonderfully! I freeze it in quart containers which is enough for four servings. Enough sweating already!!!!
After making this sauce for a few years in the heat of my kitchen I decided to try freezing it instead. It works wonderfully! I freeze it in quart containers which is enough for four servings. Enough sweating already!!!!
4 comments:
I love roasted vegetables! Thanks for the recipe...I can smell the aroma from here!
Mmmmm! Sounds delicious! I think there's something about 'doing down' one's own produce that creates a bridge to the past, when one provided for oneself and one's family. It's a good feeling.
Your recipe sounds wonderful, like Yvonne said, you can smell the aroma. I have a nice cluster of tomatoes on my window sill to ripen and many more green ones in the deck pots.
Thanks for the comments on my post too :)
Yum! This looks and sounds so good. I used to make all sorts of pickles and jams but haven't done any in recent years. They don't seem to get eaten now the boys aren't at home. Maybe this smaller batch book would be an incentive to start again!
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