I suspect Martin eats out more than he eats in but I know he is a great cook. We’ve had his homemade pizzas and olive salad and things I can’t remember right now. He emailed us that he and Boo had bought thirty pounds of tomatoes at the public market and made sauce by baking the tomatoes. We have always par-boiled the tomatoes and then simmered the sauce for most of the day so we were intrigued by the baking approach. We grow tomatoes in the gardens of the neighbors on either side of us. We don’t have enough sun on our property to grow them. In fact I only have to mow our lawn twice a year because it just doesn’t get enough light to grow.
We picked both gardens clean and split the tomatoes in half as Martin suggested. Here’s his recipe:
Cut in half and put in roasting pans with chopped onion, garlic, some with red peppers and olive oil, baked for 3 hours, pull the skins off and blend. We started at 400 for an hour then lowered to 350. They get real juicy at first then the juice starts to evaporate. When most of it is gone take them out and let them cool. We dug in and slipped the skins off before blending them and putting them in freezer bags with a funnel. We put sliced carrots in some batches- they sweeten it a bit. Don’t bother with Basil, the flavor disappears almost as soon as you put it in so it should never be added until you’re ready to eat.
I was working out in the tomatoes cooked down and the whole neighborhood smelled like an Italian restaurant. We started to pull the skins off and then bagged that idea. And we didn’t blend them either. It almost like stewed tomatoes but chunky and rich. The next night I baked a big eggplant at 400 for about an hour and then peeled and sliced it. I mixed it in with the sauce and we served it over whole wheat pasta.
5 Comments
I remember from college days, the hippy chicks that used to cook were putting a large carrot in the tomato sauce as it cooked down. They claimed it counteracted the acidity of the tomatoes & they threw he carrot out when the sauce was done.
no carrot left behind.
Peggi puts lots of carrots in her sauce and she doesn’t take them out. They stay chunky and provide a hearty, meat-like sensation.
Mario Batali adds grated carrot to the sauteeing onion and garlic before adding tomatoes in his basic sauce.
The skins just turn into undigestible red needles so we cooled it down took them off. It’s messy but only takes few minutes. It does smell pretty fantastic.
We came up with this method a few years to save time.
I cook a serious meal about once a week with Boo in her rather amazing kitchen. At home its a bachelor situation.
bachelor situation, i think i totally comprehend the food implications there