TOMATOES

By

Annette Bergman

 

The tomatoes are ganging up on me in my garden. With my husband being in the hospital I can’t even come close to eating or doing something with all of them.

I picked a colander full of various size tomatoes last evening and decided I would try my hand at making some pizza sauce.  I didn’t even look in any one of my sixty some odd cook books.  I blanch the tomatoes and then chopped them and put them in a pot, I added minced onions, garlic powder and two fresh stalks of oregano to cook on low. 

They cooked and cooked and were not getting thick.  So I put them through a strainer and removed the seeds. Then put the juice back on the stove and cooked and cooked and cooked some more.

I wanted the sauce to be between a tomato paste and a tomato sauce.  I wanted it to be thick enough to smear on a tortilla and not run.  I cook and stirred until the sauce would stay divided, like the Red Sea, when I drug the spoon through the middle of the pot.  When I was satisfied with the sauce I had reduced the original colander full of tomatoes down to half a cup. I let it cool and today I made a pizza with my sauce, mozzarella cheese, fresh Italian sausage, chopped green peppers, fresh from the garden, chopped fresh onions and chopped fresh tomatoes.  Then I topped it with cut fresh basil. Baked it on 400 degrees and sat down all by myself and enjoyed my creation.

It was delicious. I even took a small slice to my husband in the hospital (he is on a strict diet) and he liked it too.

I didn’t tell him how much time and effort it took to create half a cup of sauce.

I know every time I see a can of tomato paste I’ll wonder if it as one or two bushels on tomatoes in the can.