Simple Tomato Sauce
Many of Dr. Penny’s quick-and-easy healthy winter weekday dinners make use of tomato sauces made in the summer or fall and then frozen. Seasonal tomatoes taste great and are full of nutrients. Even a small portion can pack a big punch of flavour and using lots of herbs contributes to your 30 plant foods a week.
The prep time is fairly short, but there is a bit of cooking time, so it’s good to make this at a weekend, while getting on with some other work or tidying up. Of course the only prep time when it comes to eating it in winter is to defrost the edges enough to get it out of the container and into the pan to heat up!
Ingredients
4 tbsp olive oil
1 large onion
1- 6 cloves of garlic, depending on how garlicky you want your sauce
About 4 lb (2 kg) of tomatoes, which is about 20 good sized tomatoes
1-4 tablespoons mixed dried herbs or 1/4 - 1/2 cup fresh herbs.
Salt and pepper to taste
Use a large saucepan with a heavy base.
Chop the onion and fry it in the olive oil in the bottom of the pan until it is translucent, stirring occasionally.
Meanwhile, prepare the tomatoes by washing them, cutting them in half and cutting out the little core. Blend a batch in your food-processor or blender for about 10-20 seconds, until pureed and ready to add to the pan.
The garlic can be coarsely chopped, finely chopped or crushed in a garlic crusher.
Add the garlic to the onions and fry for 2-3 minutes, taking care not to let it burn.
Add the first batch of pureed tomatoes, and stir to make sure the onions and garlic are stirred into the tomatoes, not sitting on the bottom.
Puree the rest of the tomatoes and pour them in, then add the herbs, and give it a good stir.
Bring it to the boil, then set it to simmer gently.
Add salt and pepper to taste.
Herb mixes that work well include Italian herb mix, any focaccia herb blend, and herbs de Provence, but any single herb or mix of herbs that are your favourites will delight you in winter.
The sauce is cooked after about 30 minutes, or you can simmer it down for a couple of hours to be more condensed. As long as it isn’t sticking on the bottom of your pan and burning it is very forgiving: it is fine if you get caught up in some work and forgot to put on a timer, which is always a bonus in a busy life!
You can use this as a sauce over other vegetables, meats, fish, pasta (with or without pesto), or as a base for soups or stews. You’ll see it popping up here and there in our Lazy Cook Healthy Meals suggestions/series.
Some tips:
Roma tomatoes are great for this as they have a bit more body to them, but you can use any tomatoes you have. If the sauce is more watery then you’d like, simmer it for longer to condense it.
While the food processor works fabulously to prepare the tomatoes, it doesn’t chop onions evenly, so we chop our onions by hand. If you are OK with some slightly bigger chunks of onions in your sauce, and some smaller bits that will have a tendency to burn faster, and so will need a more vigilant eye during the few minutes they are cooking, you can chop the onions in the food processor too.
Smashing an unpeeled garlic clove with the side of a knife (carefully!) or with the bottom of a jar, makes it easier to peel before you chop it, and releases some of its juices.
If you like things spicy you can add some hot peppers or chilli seeds to the sauce, or some Worcestershire sauce or chilli sauce as you reheat it.
You can multiply the recipe as much as you want, as long as it’ll fit in your pan and you have sufficient jars and freezer space to freeze it in.
Dr Penny has two big pans with heavy bases so she makes two batches at a time, with different herb blends, to have sauces with different flavours to enjoy over winter.
Freeze it in mason jars or jam jars. Fill them very close to the top, to give a little space for expansion when freezing, but not too much space, as that allows freezer-burn at the surface. Look for jars that don’t have a “neck” where they are slimmer towards the top. A jar with a neck needs a bit more time defrosting before the frozen sauce can slide out into the pan you are going to heat it up in.
To speed up defrosting, put the jar into a basin, bowl or pan of cold water.
If you know someone who would like easy healthy cooking ideas, please pass this on to them.
Comments