The tomato bounty from the garden

The tomato bounty from the garden

Oh my gosh! the tomato bounty this year is massive. At the market or supermarket you can buy them for 28 cents a kilo, or if you have a friend with a garden, they’re free. My friend’s mom gave me a 4 kilo flat from her garden near Lucca the other day. What to do? There’s only one solution: Pomarola.

Pomarola is simply fresh red sauce. In Tuscany, pomarola refers to the complete sauce (with seasonings), while in some other regions as I understand it, it’s the first step of tomato sauce without seasoning.

Here is what I did yesterday to turn 4 kilos of free tomatoes into enough sauce for 5 meals for 2 people. Talk about good household economy!

  1. I washed 4 kilos of tomatoes, and chopped them up coarsely.
  2. Put chopped tomatoes into large cauldron with a bit of water in the bottom to get things started, on medium heat, until tomatoes start releasing water.
  3. Let simmer until tomatoes are easily squished with wooden spoon.
  4. Let cool, then put through a food mill into a large plastic bowl.
  5. At bottom of your large pot, simmer chopped onions and garlic in olive oil (optional step).
  6. Transfer the tomato liquid back to your cauldron/pot, add fresh herbs from the garden (I had basil, parseley, and origano) and a bit of olive oil. Simmer for a few hours until it’s no longer liquid.
  7. I decided to take the lazy approach and pour my sauce into plastic containers and freeze. In a good freezer this will keep for a year, but i’ll enjoy my sauce a lot come winter when tomatoes are not this good!
boiling up the coarsely chopped tomatoes in my biggest pot

boiling up the coarsely chopped tomatoes in my biggest pot