Yard Sauce 2020

Skip planted several varieties of tomatoes this year and they're starting to ripen. He's been dusting them with food grade diotemaceous earth (basically crumbled sedimentary rock), to discourage slugs, rodents, and other critters that enjoy taking a bite and leaving the rest of the tomato on the vine. So far, his efforts have paid off.

Today I made yard sauce - a roasted tomato recipe I picked up from watching Priscilla and Chelsea on FlossTube (one of many stitching channels on YouTube). There's also a video tutorial. 

I purchased a large aluminum lasagna pan at our local Wholesale Club for under $2 and was ready to make a batch this morning.

First I drizzled olive oil on the bottom of the pan and smeared it all over the bottom and into the corners. This prevents the tomatoes from stitcking during roasting.

Then I took the stem part off the tomato and cut it into quarters and put them in the roasting pan - skins down. I covered the entire bottom of the roasting pan with the quartered tomatoes. Then I tossed in an onion sliced in wedges and several basil leaves that I chopped up a bit, and sprinkled some salt over the mixture.

Normally I would put the pan into a 425F oven for 45 minutes to an hour. Today, not wanting to heat up the kitchen with the oven, I fired up the barbecue and put the pan in there. 

After 45 minutes, at 425-ish degrees F, I checked the tomatoes. There was still a lot of juice so I left the pan in for another 10 minutes.  The tips of the tomatoes and onions were nicely toasted. Then I let it cool off. 

After my Sunday afternoon videochat with my stitching peeps, I put everything in the blender (a food processor would work, too) and put the resulting roasted tomato sauce in a couple of freezer bags, filling them halfway. I folded them and sealed them, pressing all the air out. Laying flat, they hardly take any room in the freezer and they'll keep for months there.

This first batch was thicker than last year's batches because of the extra time roasting. The extra time also carmelizes the sugars in the tomatoes, making a rich, tasty sauce. 

When we use the sauce, we'll add garlic and any herbs we like - oregano or more basil. 

Cleanup is easy. Just soak the pan and all the baked-on stuff will just wash away.