Faithful reader Jason Fox put it simply and true on Friday after I posted about starting to make spaghetti starter for the first time in four years.
“It’s that time of year where the amount of tomatoes that are going around from family and friends is insane,” he emailed. “It would be super cool if you wrote about your spaghetti starter or other uses for these things, and other harvest ideas.”
You could throw zucchini and peppers into that mix over the next few weeks, too.
I have ideas.
But tomatoes and, well, gardening itself is more than growing things.
This year was extra special for me because it was the first time making spag starter in four years. We moved, then I had heart surgery, and our new home did not have a garden, so I was container gardening. This was the first year where I seemed to have really figured out container gardening to the point where I got a mess of tomatoes all at once.
Starter
Spaghetti starter at the most basic is simply homemade tomato sauce.
But for me, it is far more.
For 20 years at our old house, I worked at building a completely organic garden, involving year-round composting, utilizing rabbit droppings when our kids raised rabbits and using leaves and cover crops over winter. When insects hit, I hand picked them. In hard years for Japanese beetles, I would be out evenings with a beer and handpick the beetles to put into a container of soapy water.
Within a few years, I had the fundamentals of good soil for growing things and I started getting too many tomatoes to eat fresh. Because of time and space restrictions (and because I had never canned other than watching and helping my mother), I was not going to can them. From somewhere (if I remembered where I would give credit), I learned how to freeze a basic tomato sauce.
I tweaked it over the years to suit my needs and what I grew up to make a tomato sauce that could serve as a base for spaghetti sauce when combined with tomato paste, sugar, wine and however much more garlic or basil you wish to add.
It also works as a good base for a tomato-based winter soup.
Ingredients
Mess of tomatoes, the more the better. If you going to the work of making it, might has well make it worth your while
Onions match to your taste and the amount of tomatoes
Garlic
Basil
Salt (if you’re not sodium restricted)
Worcester sauce to taste
Cooking/bagging
Start a big pot of water boiling
Make a big bowl of ice water
Once, the water is boiling, X the bottom of tomatoes and put three or four into the boiling water for 30 seconds, then immediately transfer to ice water. Within 15 seconds or so, you should be able to easily peel the tomato and core it and seed it. (if using extra grape or cherry tomatoes, skip this step for them and simply clean and half)
Sweat the onions over medium heat in olive oil. Just before adding the first peeled/seeded tomatoes, add and stir in chopped garlic.
First, if you have any halved cherry or grape tomatoes, put them in. Otherwise, start adding the peeled tomatoes. About halfway through adding tomatoes, add and stir in chopped basil and Worcester sauce and/or salt to your taste.
Finish adding and stirring in peeled/seeded tomatoes when all are prepped.
Cook until you like the consistency. (I like a chunky sauce, so I don’t do it for long)
Use an immersion blender (my favorite part) to reach the consistency you like best and to make sure there are no chunks too large
Bagging/freezing
Let cool.
Stir well regularly during bagging.
Put a pint and a half (three cups) of sauce into each dated and marked quart freezer bag. That is about the same amount as most jars of spaghetti sauce.
Stack the bags with paper towels between them, otherwise they will freeze together
Chili starter
At the end of the season, I find the tomatoes tend to not be as sweet, so I tweak the spag starter recipe by sweating a mess of peppers with the onions and adding heat (chili powder, red pepper, cayenne pepper) to taste, and turn the basic spag starter into chili starter. Just make sure you make note on your freezer bags.
