For me, few things make it feel reallllly like summertime more than picking tomatoes from my very own backyard garden. This year, my mother-in-law kept gifting us with her home-sprouted plants, so my tomato patch went from a small corner of the garden to several rows! Tomatoes are the garden gift that keep giving.
Always, for me, the first ripe tomato is eaten raw. Usually for breakfast, and always with an egg.
But, the first large tomato harvest is made into not-canned, eaten the next day, tomato sauce! This is an all-day cook, but requires very little effort. Tomorrow’s dinner plan is for a very special gumbo, so today’s tomato sauce has an extra ingredient: Cajun Belle Peppers from a plant that I purchased as a seedling this spring from Goodin’s Garden
For this tomato sauce, I wash off my ripe tomatoes (regardless of variety), core and quarter the larger ones, and put them in a stock pot. The green and red chunks on top are the Cajun Belle peppers.
Washing and cutting the tomatoes and peppers was the most time spent on this recipe – and that was about 10 minutes.
I turned the heat to medium low, and walked away at 8:30
At 9, I walked back into the kitchen and put the lid on to get heat evenly distributed throughout the pot.
At close to 11, everything had cooked down into its own juices so I removed the lid and then turned the burner down to low.
1:30 really starting to get thick
At 3:45, I added in 4 cloves of roasted garlic, and broke it up into the sauce.
4:15 it is perfect!
And by 4:20, I had a quart (and a little bit) worth of garden fresh goodness ready to be used in tomorrow’s recipe!
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