It's been the kind of growing season that will become folklore: tomatoes planted on March 31st are still going strong in October. Peppers and Japanese Eggplant, too. The only problem is we're kind of sauced out by this point, have tons of tomatoes sliced and frozen, lots of canned sauce in the pantry, frozen in bags whole, stewed and chile verde made from the green ones and the tomatillos, and we've eaten them fresh every day all summer.
I cooked them down with some olive oil, and decided to try making tomato paste. We don't really use tomato paste but were told it tastes NOTHING like what is available in the stores. It was worth a try.
So, 16 quarts of fresh, quartered tomatoes made eight quarts of sauce that eventually became this wonderful, just-dip-a-piece-of-French-bread-and-eat-it-right-from-the-jar bruschetta. You're going to love it. Fresh bruschetta is good, and we love that, too - but this - as a gift for holiday entertaining - is amazing.
HOLIDAY GIFT BRUSCHETTA
16 qts fresh tomatoes, quartered in a stock pot (adjust recipe for volume)1 whole head of garlic
7 yellow onions
Fresh herbs - sage, rosemary, thyme, marjoram, parsley, basil
Fresh pesto if you have it
Pepper, salt
Fresh chives
Cook down the tomatoes and put through the juicer, skins and all. Transfer to 8 qt stock pot, continue to cook on med low.
In a sauté pan, add cleaned, rough sliced garlic and onions, clean and add fresh herbs in big handfuls, to taste. When sautéed adequately, add skins and seeds from the juicer and Cuisinart on high to pulverize until nearly smooth. Add to sauce. (We waste nothing.)
Taste as you go - add fresh pesto for deeper flavor, if needed (we had a 4 oz jar of freshly made, and added it)350 oven. Lay out rimmed baking sheets and wide flat baking dishes - enough for 3 shelves in the oven. Ladle sauce into each pan to cover the bottom and up some on the sides. A little tip: the sauce will cook down more evenly if all the pans have approximately the same depth of sauce.
Set the timer for 30 minutes, rotate position of each pan, mix sauce and watch so it does not burn. Continue at 30 minute intervals. When sauce thickens to a deeper red color and reduces by 30%, it is ready. You can tell by the nice spreadable texture and chunks of herbs peeking through. Spoon into canning jars and process 15 minutes in a water bath canner. Cool. Label. For those wanting to continue on to the tomato paste phase, I'd recommend turning down the temp to300 and continue baking until sauce reduces by 50% or more, and it has a thick, savory texture. Follow instructions for canning.
Tip: have a plate a cookies out, because the kitchen aromas will draw people into the kitchen like a magnet.
