| By :
Dennis Weaver
Make your own marinara sauce for pizza and pasta. It takes a little time but it's well worth it. You can use exactly the spices that you like and fresh tomatoes make a very different sauce than canned. (But if you have a ton or tomatoes, you can bottle what you don't use fresh.) How to Chop and Seed Tomatoes 1. Bring a pan of water to boil. Place four or five tomatoes at a time in the hot water and leave them in the bath for one minute. Remove them from the water and start another batch. Let the tomatoes cool to where you can handle them. 2. Peel the tomatoes by starting a small slit in the skin with a knife at the tip of a tomato. Grasp the edge of the skin and peel the skin from the tomato in strips. Repeat with each tomato. 3. Cut away the top of the tomato. Cut the tomato in half. With your thumb, loosen the seeds and press them into a bowl or into the sink. With Roma tomatoes, only the flesh will remain. With other tomatoes, you can remove most of the seeds. Throw the seeds away. Repeat with the remaining tomatoes. Tools for Removing the Seeds from Tomatoes While it's easy to peel and seed tomatoes by hand, you can do it in less time with tools. A Victorio strainer, a food mill, or potato ricer will do it if the screens are small enough. (It takes 2.2 millimeter screen or smaller to catch tomato seeds.) A Victorio strainer has a hopper on the top and a twist handle and will handle a lot of produce in a hurry. It catches both the seeds and the skins and it is available with different sized screens to make anything from raspberry jelly to applesauce to salsa. You can get the same results from a food mill but without the large hopper and screw type crank of the vireo strainer, it is not as quick. A ricer is a simple hand press used to press one tomato at a time through a screen. It also is used to rice potatoes and other produce. Choose the tool that meets your needs. Canning Your Tomato Sauce Consider canning your tomato sauce. While we like fresh better than canned, you can make tomato sauce that is better than what you buy. You know what's going into it and you can add spices as you like it. And there is a great deal of satisfaction in putting your own food by. Use a reliable source for instructions such as a governmental or industry source. The recipe below can be made in small batches for fresh use or large batches for canning. Tomato Sauce for Pizza or Pasta 2 to 3 cups peeled and seeded Roma or other tomatoes
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt or to taste
1/2 teaspoon granulated sugar
1 large garlic clove, crushed
1 teaspoon crushed, dried oregano or a tablespoon of fresh
1 teaspoon dried basil leaves or two teaspoons fresh
2 tablespoons olive oil Baker's note: Alter the quantities of the garlic, oregano, and basil to suit your tastes. If you like more, add more. Directions Chop the seeded tomatoes in a food processor or blender. Cook the tomatoes along with the seasonings and sugar for ten minutes or until it starts to thicken, stirring frequently. Add the olive oil. Let cool.
|
![[Valid RSS feed]](http://www.articlesbacklink.com/images/icon_Rss.png "XML Feed For RSS"){kind=icon}
Category Rss Feed
Print This Article
Add To Favorites
