Guest Post-Jo "The Sauce"

Tomato sauce.  The Sauce.  I always thought it was some daunting task, to be done in huge batches with canning kettles at the ready and all tomatoes set to be blanched, peeled, seeded and seasoned.  Don't forget your bucket of ice water!  You read a thousand recipes online and they almost all say you are supposed to take the skins off and spoon out the seeds.  Techniques and suggestions on how best to do this abound.

Paste tomatoes such as Federle or San Marzano are preferred and juicy sandwich tomatoes are pooh poohed.  Making sauce from cherry tomatoes or smaller varieties is unheard of.

This seems like such nonsense to me.  My tomatoes come from either my own gardens or Tree & Twig.  I know the skins are fine... no pesticide use!  I don't worry about ingesting seeds -- I eat them in a toasted tomato sandwich all the time.

When you google "Do I have to peel and seed tomatoes to make sauce?"  the answers vary from "yes" to "hell yes" to "here's how I do it". 

I am here to tell you NO.  No.  You don't need to take the skins off or remove the seeds.  You can if you want to, but I honestly don't see the point.

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I  bought seedlings at Linda's Tomato Days this year for the first time.  We planted five plants at my dad's house and one at mine.  We're getting bumper crops -- tons of deliciousness and I've made some soups and salads, but I wanted to try sauce, and was pressed for time.

Also, my most productive plant by far is the Fargo Yellow Pear, and those little guys are about an inch in diameter.  The next most productive is Brazilian Beauty, and they are about two inches.  Lots and lots of little tomatoes.  Too.  Much.  Work.  To.  Peel.

So I cut off the green stems and any blemishes but other than that, I just throw them into my high-powered blender.  In short order, I get a soupy liquid, and I add some onions or garlic or basil and puree some more.  Put in a pot, add some salt and pepper, bring to a boil and simmer or cook on medium-low for about 45 minutes until it reduces to the consistency I like.  Today I added a lot of parmesan and it was...

of course...

DELICIOUS.

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