Picket Fence Style Salsa Di Pomodoro

 We are having a massive season with our tomatoes. With such a big crop we have eaten bucket loads and traded even more. I was looking at making chutney when a dear friend suggested passata di pomodoro. This being a tomato puree with the skins and seeds removed with a sieve. We don't have a moulle or a decent sieve ( on the list !)  so the Picket Fence children and I made a twisted version of salsa di pomodoro...a Neapolitan style tomato sauce....we left the seeds in :) 5kg of tomatoes gave us 7 jars of sauce ( 750gm jars) What I loved about making this was the fact that it was a family effort...the Picket Fence children did the lot (with supervision ) we learnt how to preserve and they had lots of fun...life skills, self esteem points and education ...love it :)
Halve fruit and remove stems, Cook in a heavy based pot with a little water. Bring to the boil and then simmer for 30 minutes. Cool .
Spoon into a food processor and give the mixture a quick whizz. This is enough to let you pick the skins out . Discard the skin. Process for around 1 minute until pulpy.
Throw some Basil leaves into sterilised recycled jars. ( We sterilised ours in Milton antibacterial solution and cold water....too easy. You can however, boil your bottles or sterilise them in an oven)
Ladle the mix into the jars through a funnel ( Note to self...hunt for vintage enamel funnel on EBay) Leave about an inch at the top of each bottle. Seal immediately with sterilised lids.
Place jars in a pot with water to cover ( I found my old vacola steriliser unit after this ) and boil for an hour.....let the bottles cool in the water.
Employ industrious kitchen slaves to make bespoke labels out of recycled bits and pieces.
Your sauce should last 12 months in a cool dark well ventilated place. Add onions, garlic etc at point of use. Don't panic if the sauce looks to separate in the bottle after time....this tells you it's not full of chemicals to bind it and seduce customers on a supermarket shelf. Shake it :) and enjoy.
Next we are going to try making mint jelly and then jams....fingers crossed we succeed . What are you doing in your school holidays ? I'd love to hear !

9 comments:

  1. What a wonderful thing to do with your children, not to mention very productive. I always made soup with lots of fresh herbs which could double as a pasta sauce. As of last Sunday all my children have left home, so no more school holidays for me.

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  2. I love making preserves, this looks fabulous- I wouldn't strain the seeds either!

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  3. A wonderful lesson for your children and they will understand good food.

    Great post

    Helen xx

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  4. yum....it makes my one & only big fat tomato on our little plant look so sad - he was very well loved though!! xxx

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  5. I will keep this in mind, as during the summer time I have tomatoes galore! I love the bottles and the tags are cute!

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  6. Hi Ava, what a fantastic recipe, so easy! Your tomatoes look delish. Reading your previous post I am sorry to learn that your daughter is Ceoliac. It will be a big thing for you all to adapt too. My brother is waiting for his diagnosis, he is very down about it. He is diabetic and has been on a restricted diet for quite a few years now. I feel I must read up on it so that I can be of help to him, should he be diagnosed. I hope your daughter will get help and advice from the doctor.

    Many thanks for your lovely comments Ava, they are much appreciated. Love Linda x

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  7. Hi Ava ~ thank you for stopping by. What a fab way to spend time with your children ~ my mum always has loads of tomatoes left in her garden after the summer, so I will make a note of the recipe which sounds delicious, for later in the year. I love the bottles and the labels too, thank you sooooo much for sharing ~ Haizi x

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  8. Well one of the things I'm doing these school holidays is being extremely slack at reading the blogs I love and even slacker at leaving comments (I'll blame Twitter for that).
    Your sauce looks amazing. Our tomatoes are just about to ripen as I was slow at starting them this year (we had too much frost). This will be the first time I've grown them from seed. Just picked some green ones today to let them ripen on the window sill as the pests seems to get them the second they show any red. I'll outsmart them varments this year!!!
    can't wait to see what you've got cooking next!!
    x Marnie
    PS: Those kiddos of yours just keep getting cuter by the minute.

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  9. Thanks for this post lovely, I came back to find it as this is my foodie task today :) I am thinking of freezing instead of bottling this time around, but will probably bottle the batch we do next weekend. Freezing should be ok shouldn't it?

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