Tomato Sauce

I was still looking for things to do with tomatoes and I had several small Granny Smith apples from our tree, so I put them together and got tomato sauce.

Here's the recipe:

3.25kg ripe tomatoes
0.75kg apples
450ml apple cider vinegar
500g sugar
30ml veggie salt
15ml paprika
2.5ml teaspoons cayenne
20ml cornflour

Wash the tomatoes, chop them and place in a large pot. Wash, peel and dice the apples (retain peel and cores for apple jelly making, if the apples are not sprayed). Put apples in the pot with the tomatoes and place on low heat until everything is soft and pulpy. You shouldn't need to add water, as the tomatoes will be juicy enough.

When tomatoes and apples are cooked, leave to cool for a while. When cool enough to handle, press through a sieve. This will remove most of the seeds and the tomato skins. Make sure you push the apple through, as this adds a bit of bulk to the sauce.

Put the puree back into the pot (which you have rinsed) and add the vinegar, sugar, salt and spices. Bring to the boil, stirring frequently; cook until mixture has thickened a little. Combine cornflour with a small amount of water and stir into mixture. This will thicken it a little more. You may add more cornflour if you like particularly thick sauce.

When the sauce is cool enough to handle, pour into clean screw-top bottles, leaving a little room at the top of the bottles. Put lids on bottles and sterilise in the following manner:
Place filled bottles in a deep pan of hand-hot water (about 50C). Make sure the water does not cover any of the bottles. Put the lid on the pan and heat until simmering (about 88C). This should take about 30 minutes. Leave the bottles in the simmering water for another 30 minutes. When finished turn off the heat and let it cool down until you can safely take the bottles out. Make sure the lids are still well sealed. Label and store.

This a fairly basic recipe. You could experiment with adding different herbs and spices, like garlic, basil, chilli, etc.

You need to be very particular about sterilising the bottles of tomato sauce. This is because the main ingredient is tomatoes and they can result in botulism if not processed correctly. Having said that, this method is possibly a little bit of an overkill, but where my family's health is concerned, I'd rather be safe than sorry.

This amount of tomatoes makes about 3L of tomato sauce. That's probably more than a year's supply in our house . . .

love and light
naturewitch