For us, it started with the garden. Eating fresh became part of the routine of every meal, first as a side dish – with salads, marinated veggies, baked and sautéed squash and eggplant — and then entrees such as homemade chile verde, stuffed squash and Tomatoes Deborah.
There was an overabundance of everything and it needed to be saved for fall and winter, so my first try was make sauces from the tomatoes. After coring them, they were tossed into a big stew pot 3/4 full sun warmed from the vine, skins and seeds and all. It cooked on low for an hour or so, and stirred every now and then. It cooks down pretty quick and there’s plenty of liquid.
The first few times the sauce was cooked, it was put through a juicer to separate the skins and most of the seeds for a super smooth watery sauce. I then pulverized the skins and seeds in the food processor and added it back into the sauce as a thickener because it doesn’t change the flavor and retains the extra antioxidant and nutritional value found in those parts. Nowadays, I just leave everything in the pot and if I want a finer texture I emulsify it right with a hand held emulsifier ($25, but oh so worth it).
An old friend taught me to always season meat before freezing it so it is marinating as it freezes and also as it thaws, and that’s true here, too. In a sauté pan soften up as much garlic, pepper and onion as you want in a ladle of the tomato liquid and then add it to the stewpot with a couple of bay leaves and other spices — we include pepper, Mrs. Dash table blend, fresh/dry marjoram, basil, thyme, rosemary, and oregano and a dash of red pepper flakes. Let the seasonings meld and that’s it: cool and store in quart canning jars in the freezer to use all year round.
I do keep a jar or two of non meat Classico Di Napoli Tomato & Basil spaghetti sauce in the pantry because we’re a ways from town. We find it very flavorful but even so, for a 24 oz jar that serves 5 it contains 430 mg of sodium per serving (2,150 mg overall). It also contains 6 grams of sugar. For a diet of 1500 g max of salt per day, that’s a problem.
The bulk food aisle is another easy place to cook fresh. The beans are easy to re-hydrate by soaking them in a bowl on the counter overnight or you can quicken the process by tossing them in a crockpot at a 3 x 1 water ratio and setting it on low for the day. 1/2 c of dry beans yields 2 cups of cooked. I like that you can make just what you need and there’s no fancy packaging to throw away.
It’s hard to fight the logic of starting there after reading the nutritional information. A 15 oz can of S&W white beans has 3.5 servings per 15 oz can and 480 mg of sodium per serving (that’s over 1,600 mg of sodium in a 15oz can). Compare that to the bulk aisle which costs the same and the beans are air dried on the vine or oven dried without the need for preservatives and color additives. The bulk aisle gives you fresher choices that are full of potassium and protein with no fat or cholesterol.
