Friday, August 16, 2013
One of my most favorite summer cooking activities is making fresh tomato sauce. There’s simply nothing else like it in the world.
Shopping and eating locally is easy in the heart of the summer, and I love visiting the farmers’ markets to fill my fridge and countertop with peaches and berries, zucchini and string beans, eggplant and okra—and everything in between.
Yet every week I wonder: when will summer-sweet tomatoes and corn finally reach New England’s cooler climate?
That time is finally here (!), and along with it my first fresh tomato sauce of the season. Indeed, one of my first blog posts was a step-by-step text- and photo version (click here). And if you’re somewhat intrigued by making your own sauce but the thought of chopping 15 pounds of tomatoes makes you cringe, then check out this blog post where I make it from canned, as I often do in the winter.
In any case, making up a big batch of tomato sauce is a true pleasure, any time of year, and today’s video shows you how. While longer than some of my other videos—though I think there are at least a few amusing moments in there to keep you entertained—just think how happy you’ll be after having made up your own sauce, which you can then use as a starting point for a number of other tasty dishes. And don’t forget to throw some in the freezer so you can enjoy summer-fresh tomato sauce in the heart of winter.
Make sure to check out my extensive list of recipes for creative ways to use this sauce, and thanks for watching!
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YUM!!! I have a question. One of my gourmet chef friends, as well as my Italian fiance’s parents (who ran a restaurant for years and are amazing cooks) scoff when I suggest making sauce with fresh tomatoes. They say that fresh beautiful tomatoes should be reserved for things like caprese salad and other salads, bruschetta, and things where you really eat the thing whole, either raw or cooked. Your rebuttal please.
Well (she says, stepping up to the podium), I think you’ll find that human beings, Italians and otherwise, made sauce from fresh tomatoes for millennia before cans came along would be my guess. And, as I say in the video, that’s why “seconds” are ideal for sauce: they are often less-than-perfect (meaning, less likely to be selected for salads, etc), inexpensive, and perfect for sauce. I make sauce from canned all winter long, also delicious, so this is a great shout-out to the joys of canned tomatoes (I have another blog post dedicated to this, in fact). But nothing beats a summer-fresh tomato sauce. For me, it’s just one other way to enjoy summer-sweet tomatoes when I’m not eating caprese. 😉 Great comment!