Monday, September 8, 2014

Preserving the Bounty: Sweet Sauce [The Cookbook]

A week ago, Madre came to visit and we canned several quarts of sweet sauce (we also did salsa and pickled peppers as well, because we had an absolutely absurd amount of tomatoes from our garden). Sauce has been on my cooking bucket list since, well, pretty much forever. It's...got a legacy in my family. Nonno was well known for his spaghetti sauce (even though I refused to eat it until I was well into my teens - it's a long and terribly odd story that I'll save as fodder for the memoir), and Bisnonna's sweet sauce is a starting point for the majority of her main dishes.

As I am not feeling well; however, I will let the pictures and madre do the talking on this one:









Sweet Sauce: [madre writes] Brown a couple onions in a little oil. Blend your tomatoes in the food processor. This will blend everything. Grandma used to put her tomatoes in really hot water, then peel the skins off and squeeze the juice and seeds out of the tomato. You do whatever method is best for you. Add a pinch of salt, sweet basil, oregano and pepper. Let it cook for a little while. Then add a can or two of paste. Add some sugar to taste. Let this cook a good while so that it thickens up. All the amounts of the ingredients depends on how many tomatoes you are using. Use your own judgment. I like to can mine. Grandma would put hers in the freezer. Here again, do what is best for you. This sauce can be used as a base for vegetable soup, spaghetti sauce, and chili. Have some fun with it.


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