Easy Tomato Sauce
- About ½ stick butter or a few tablespoons olive oil
- 2 cloves garlic, roughly chopped, salted (Let sit with salt a few minutes.)
- 5-6 cups of garden tomatoes, quartered
- Salt
Gently sauté garlic in hot oil, stirring to prevent burning.
Add tomatoes; reduce heat until barely bubbling. Simmer 30 minutes, checking and stirring periodically to make sure it doesn’t burn.
Continue simmering until desired thickness is reached. (Boil off some of the liquid.)
Use a fork to slide out tomato skins, if desired.
Use potato masher (or immersion blender) to mash (or puree) to desired consistency.
Salt to taste.
You can add any herbs or spices you like (oregano, basil, thyme, paprika, cayenne, pepper, etc.) With my tummy still recovering, I love it with just these four ingredients.
I actually cooked mine in my Solar Hot Pot today. http://www.solarcooker-at-cantinawest.com/hotpot-solar-cookers.html
Cooking in the Solar Hot Pot will make a very soupy sauce, which I like. You could even add a little cream and eat it as soup. Anyway, this is because very little water escapes from the Hot Pot, and tomatoes are very juicy.
I love using my Solar Hot Pot and saving energy, and I love going outside to reset to the sun rather than being inside checking to make sure it doesn’t burn. The tomatoes should not burn in the Hot Pot. Although, the garlic in butter could if left too long.
To cook this in a Solar Hot Pot, set out your Hot Pot in the sun (with reflector) with the butter and garlic. Let this cook about 30 minutes (15 minutes if it is mid-summer or closer to the equator than we are).
Then quickly add tomatoes. Also put a round baking rack in the top to hold a meat thermometer. (You can sort of see these in the above photo.) Don’t let the thermometer touch the bottom of Pot; make sure it’s resting in the middle of the tomatoes.
In one hour, reset to sun and check temp. The temperature should be up to 140 at least in 1 ½ hours, for food safety (bacteria growth).
Keep resetting to sun every hour or so.
Mine was great after the tomatoes had been in 3 ½ hours.
Christa Upton Black Hills Picture Books Edgemont, SD 57735
