Help with small amount of home made tomato sauce please?

[gardening_gal]

I have a small amount of tomatoes that are not quite as fresh as I'd like but I would think they are still perfectly ok for making sauce.

I've never made tom sauce before so I Googled to see what to do. Unfortunately all I seem to find are recipes that deal with pounds and pounds of tomatoes and add in all sorts of other ingredients.

All I want to know is how to turn these leftover toms into a sauce that I could freeze in ice cube trays and add in to dishes whilst cooking.

I have no clue what to do or what amounts of water or anything else I should be dealing with.

Can anyone help me with an idiot's guide to turning a small amount of toms into a usable sauce in order to avoid just wasting them please?

[Alison]

Just make a passatta - I cut the toms in half and roast in the oven with a drizzle of oil and a few garlic cloves, sliced shallots and herbs. When nice and soft then sieve and use. I bottle mine to store in jars but freezing is fine (but takes up more space).

[gardening_gal]

Now that I can do! Sounds simple and straight forward. Thank you Alison.

[Scarlet]

I do the same as Alison. No measurements, just use what I have. If you want to reduce it more to make a "purée" after sieving the skins out I add the whole lot into a large tray and cook on very slow in the oven, reduces the passata to a very thick paste. I've got an aga, so it's not costly to do as the oven is on all day but it does take a couple of hours.

[gardening_gal]

Thanks scarlet. I'll see what kind of amount I'm left with then decide whether to freeze as is or reduce it as you explained. Appreciate the help.

[gardening_gal]

Just thought I'd come back and let you know I did this and I'm chuffed at a) how easy it was and b) how it turned out. I now have small blocks of (really quite tasty) passata in the freezer and will use them to chuck into future dishes.

I'm also feeling shame at how often I've just chucked stuff out, tomatoes especially, when it's so easy to do something with them.

Perhaps we need a 'Don't chuck it, change it' thread for folk like me.

[Baglady]

For those of us with an ordinary oven, what temperature do you set to oven to? And do you crush/chop the garlic cloves or just chuck 'em in whole?

[Bill HH]

I just freeze the whole tomatoes, then you can add them to dishes after thawing and removing the skins.
Last year i skinned them first and froze the pulp in plastic milk bottles.Either way couldn't be easier.

[Alison]

For those of us with an ordinary oven, what temperature do you set to oven to? And do you crush/chop the garlic cloves or just chuck 'em in whole?

I think I normally do it about 150C ish but can't quite remember. Doesn't really matter too much so long as they don't burn but get mushy. Re the garlic. I tend to bash and slice a bit but don't spend long on it. If it's over the tomatoes it'll impart flavour as it cooks