First..quarter your tomatoes, one piece of celery, one carrot, one medium sized onion, handful of garlic cloves. (I didn't have carrot but that's okay.) I also added lotsa' chilis, I love it spicy!!



Let that cook down (uncovered) until everything softens up. (An hour or two I suppose.) Stir from time to time.



Once everything is good and soft, throw 'er through your tomato mill.



Here's all the unwanted stuff coming out (skin, seeds, etc). I usually put this through the mill one more time just to be sure I got all the good juices!



I then put it back on the stove to simmer down so it will thicken. At this time I add fresh chopped basil, salt and pepper. (As much or little as you like!)



I simmer until the consistency I want it..go ahead and let it simmer until you reach the thickness you want. There's no real rules..it's whatever you want.



And that's it..it's done! I don't even bother canning my sauce. We gobble it up so fast here and whatever is left, I freeze it and even that gets eaten within' a week.

Hope this helps!!

Christina

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Why, you're welcome Penny!!

John..I should mention that there's no measuring involved..no 4 cups this, 1 cup that, etc...it's whatever you like. Add as much or as little as you like. If you don't like garlic, don't add it..etc.
I just wanted to show how easy it is with the tomato mill. No peeling, hardly any chopping, simmer it, throw it through the mill and "Bob's your uncle."

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This is so great, I love these no meausurement receipies, besides I don't follow everything step by step in a cookbook makes me wonder sometimes why I bother buying them!

quote:

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Originally posted by ChristinaC:
"Bob's your uncle."

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But he's my friend LOL[/QB][/QUOTE]

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Blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the earth
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Bob isn't my uncle either..hmm..who's uncle is he anyway?

kennyso..I actually ordered my mill online. Most kitchen stores have them though. I ordered mine because it was such a good deal! I can't remember for the life of me where I ordered it from. Though, I do remember it came with a recipe book that was written in Italian.

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i got my tomato mill (the same as pictured above) from Williams Sonoma online (it was, amazingly, the best price available) this summer and, boy, has it been getting a workout! every other night, i have been making batches of sauce. sometimes i just use raw toms and then cook down/thicken the results; sometimes i roast the toms for awhile in a 400 oven first. tonight i'll try the stewing method (with the supplemental veggies, garlic, etc) from above.

i'm totally terrified of the whole "canning" thing (figure that i'll do something wrong and wind up brewing a batch of botulism), so i've been filling my freezer with quart containers of sauce which, by and large unseasoned, i'll defrost and season for diffferent uses throughout the winter.

what i'm enjoying most is that each batch is different (depending on which toms are plentiful on any given day); i even had enough "orange banana" toms (bright orange plum style) to create a batch of "golden sauce" which is particularly beautiful!!

the other thing i'm doing to "preserve" tomatoes (and other stuff) is dehydrating... i've used sun-dried tomatoes for cooking for years, but i had no idea what a fabulous snack they can be - at least some varieties (others are too strongly flavored for snacking but should be terrific for tossing into soups, stews, etc).

my only caveat about any of this is - beware of inexpensive, restaurant-supply/deli take-out style plastic quart containers!! twice in the past week i've turned my kitchen into a CSI crime scene for trying to force a top onto the container, only to have the entire thing explode (even after waiting for the sauce to cool). The bad news is that the splatter pattern indicates that the perp was a very angry, one-legged midget; the good news is that my kitchen floor, cabinets and refrigerator haven't been so thoroughly cleaned (and recleaned) since i moved into the house 3 years ago.

anyway, thanks for the suggestions above - i welcome any & all ideas for things to do with tomatoes these days (last night was slicing, dredging & freezing of greem toms for winter frying).

Dee, ever dropped a jar of spaghetti sauce on the kitchen floor?
Oh, what fun that was.............. NOT.
SPLAT, everywhere.

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Sounds like she just has to boil them longer. I have never had problems..but I let my tomatoes simmer for a couple hours until they're good and soft.
Glad she's willing to try again..you will not be disappointed!!

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