I had been thinking about making homemade tomato sauce when, this Saturday at the farmers' market, I noticed red everywhere as many of the tables were selling ripe tomatoes. I sat on a picnic bench and looked up recipes for tomato sauce using my iPhone--as well as asking the experience of a church friend I ran in to at the market. She and her sister told me that making homemade tomato sauce from fresh tomatoes only makes economic sense if one is growing one's own crop (which I don't have the sun on our property to do). Otherwise it is cheaper to buy canned tomatoes and make sauce from that--which they added is fun and delicious. I decided to go ahead and do it from tomatoes this time just for the fun and learning experience, even knowing I was probably making expensive sauce!
That said, this sauce is delicious, if I may say so myself! I don't even care for marinara sauce and tend to eat my pasta with butter instead, but this sauce is so good that I just used a spoon to eat a small bowl of it. Just plain sauce!
Next on the list of experiments will be to make marinara with store bought canned tomatoes.
just a hint. If you can find a seller (at a farmer market etc) that has boxes of tomatos that are starting to turn. They won't be able to sell them and often will give them to you for a very low price. You can cut off the yucky parts and still use them to can (we do this with the inlaws....we make a ridiculous amount of tomato sauce and can it in late summer.
ReplyDeleteAlso, we do grow our own tomatos but we don't get enough yield at any one time to make a whole sauce out of it. But I will freeze tomatos whole and when I make sauce I will take whatever I have and toss them into the sauce whole. Once they have defrosted in the sauce I just run through the sauce with an immersion blender. As easy as that and you still get a tiny bit of that fresh tomato taste.
Yummy! Chris has been making homemade marinara for a while now, sometimes with canned and sometimes with fresh. It IS tasty, isn't it??
ReplyDeleteBTW, this post made me drool. One of my recent pregnancy cravings happens to be marinara sauce!
$2/lb of tomatoes is the reduced price? That is still very pricey!
ReplyDeleteOur farmer's market has a regular price of about $1.50-$2.00 per lb (depending on vendor)and on Sat we got tons of tomatoes for $0.50/lb because the farmer didn't want to bring them back home and it was towards the end of the market time. Anyhoo, the way matt makes homemade sauce is a mix of fresh & canned- uses canned tomato paste, canned whole tomatoes, and chopped fresh tomatoes. Its really really good. Of course there a millions of ways. Yours sound delish & I know it was a fun adventure, super gourmet or no... :)
Yum! But OUCH on the price. I'd love to taste some - I would never have the time to attempt this type of thing! I'm lucky to get a homemade sweet bread in once in a while for non-necessary pleasure baking...
ReplyDeleteThese are great tips, ladies. Yes, $2 was the reduced price. I walked the whole farmers' market comparing prices first. The regular tomatoes were all $2.50-$3/lb (with heirlooms costing more). But this one fellow dropped his price to $2/lb if a person bought 10 pounds or more.
ReplyDeleteI just made sauce yesterday as well. But I used canned tomatoes. ;) If you're interested in an easy fresh tomato sauce, I make something called 'light sauce'. You don't have to peel the tomatoes or anything. You just cut up fresh tomatoes as small as you want (I usually use Roma (plum)). Saute onion and garlic in Olive oil until golden, add the diced tomato, black pepper, red pepper, fresh basil. simmer for about 30hr. We usually eat this on penne.
ReplyDeleteFun experiment! It doesn't show in the picture but I sure hope you left a good inch at the top for expansion in the freezer or your expensive tomato sauce might be shattered! :(
ReplyDeleteI get organic tomatoes from one of my farmers market vendors and every week he just gives me the ones he can't sell for free. I make sauce or salsa with them. Definitely more economical.