Vegan Treats and Tomato Canning Redux

September has definitely brought me far away from my kitchen, but I vow to come back for some fall favorites in the coming weeks. In the meantime I am posting some of the noteworthy culinary moments of past few weeks.

Earlier this month Nina, my cohort of the tomato arts, and I made it to the local farm to pick a bushel of ripe Roma tomatoes for canning. I cannot lie, it was not a perfect process, but we learned a lot and are well on our way to becoming masters of preserving! This time, instead of dealing with boiling, blanching, peeling, and squeezing, we were blessed with the amazing contraption below. This baby did it all! If you are a serious canner, or if you just have a copious crop of tomatoes this year, you MUST, I repeat MUST go out and by a food strainer/sauce maker.Then, and learn from our mistake, it is wise to cook your puree for at least 45minutes until it has almost halved in size. We did not do this and our finished cans are a bit too watery. But, despite that small oversight, this puree is great and merely needs a pinch of thyme or oregano to make a perfect simple sauce for anything. I am hooked, and before returning the strainer to its rightful owner I plan on trying my hand at pumpkin puree for pie and applesauce! I'll let you know how, and if those turn out!

In addition to discovering a new passion for preserving, I also turned 30! The milestone was celebrated with the most delicious cakes and cupcakes that I have ever been privileged to eat from Vegan Treats in Bethlehem, PA. Perfection!

The Ultimate Vegetarian Bolognese & Easy Bruschetta

The Plan: Go to a local farm to pick fresh tomatoes. Peel, seed and puree the tomatoes. Make an amazing sans-meat Bolognese.

The Reality: Local farm was CLOSED. Went to grocery store. Peeled, seeded, pureed the tomatoes. Added some additional tomatoes from the can (!) to make up for a major tomato puree underestimation. Made an amazing sans-meat Bolognese!

So, things didn't go according to the original plan. Do they ever? Nina and I started our day excited about the prospect of taking a tomato from the plant to the plate, but as we pulled up to the uncharacteristically unpopulated fields we realized, to our dismay that they were closed! OH NO! But, not to be thwarted, we swung over to the supermarket that stocks local produce and picked the ripest of the bunch. I must add here that I, not really thinking about how much of a tomato is actually water, incorrectly guessed the number of tomatoes that we would need to make 70 ounces of puree. Thus, later in the day, we had to scurry to our cupboards to supplement our homemade puree. We pushed on and in the end, despite our challenges, had two beautifully bubbling pots of a deliciously thick, potent, sauce that pleased our hungry husbands very much!

This recipe is in stages. First is the recipe for making a Quick and Sweet Tomato Bruschetta, a little snack that got us in the tomato mood. Then I add the process for making Homemade Tomato Puree that you can then use in sauce or even can for use later. Finally I give you an incredibly tasty Ultimate Vegetarian Bolognese Sauce recipe that is sure to please! Bear with this doozy of a post!

Before I begin, a hearty thanks goes out to Nina who let me massacre tomatoes in her immaculate kitchen.

Quick and Sweet Tomato Bruschetta

Ingredients:
1 & 1/2 C diced tomatoes (any kind will do we used plum and half of a beefsteak)
tsp salt
T loosely packed and cut basil
T extra virgin olive oil
three -four slices of thick bread
l clove garlic cut in half

1. Add oil, salt and basil to the tomatoes and let sit for 15-30 minutes. Do not refrigerate.
2. Cut bread bread slices in half or into fours and toast in oven (or toaster oven) until crisp.
3. Rub raw garlic clove over the toasted bread and splash a bit of olive oil on each piece.
4. Spoon a heap of tomatoes onto the toasted slices.
5. Eat!

Homemade Tomato Puree

Ingredients:
16 large ripe tomatoes (you could also use Roma, but would need a lot more)

1. Heat a large pot of water to a boil.
2. Fill a large bowl with ice cold water.
   
3. Place tomatoes into the boiling water for 3-4 minutes until the skin begins to tear.
4. Place immediately into the cold water and let cool.
5. Peel off the skin of each tomato.
6. When all tomatoes are skinned, cut out the cores and quarter.
7. Squeeze the seeds out of the quarter slices into a bowl (or garbage if you don't want to save them) This is the fun part, but it leaves your counter looking like a battleground!
8. Take the rest of the tomato that has been skinned and seeded and place into a large food processor. Process to preferred consistency. I tend to like the sauce a bit chunky.
9. Set aside for use in sauce or can for later use.

Ultimate Vegetarian Bolognese

Ok, so a Bolognese sauce typically has a lot of meat, but the best parts of the sauce are the vegetables and wine which pair beautifully with the strong tomato flavor. This version omits the meat and substitutes the non-vegan milk and butter, but basically remains the very same super sauce that layered our family lasagna.

Ingredients:
1/2 C finely chopped red onion
1/2 C finely chopped carrot
1/3 C finely chopped celery
1/4 C olive oil
3 T vegan butter
1 C dry red wine
1C unsweetened soymilk
1 tsp salt and pepper
1/8 tsp nutmeg
70 oz (two 35 oz cans or 16 large pureed tomatoes)
6 oz tomato paste
1 T fresh basil

1. Saute onion, carrot, celery in oil and butter until softened.
2. Add wine and let reduce to half.
3. Add milk, salt, pepper, nutmeg and warm through.
4. Add tomatoes, paste and basil and stir to blend well.
5. Bring to boil then reduce to simmer for 3 hours uncovered.
6. Before serving taste for salt.
   

There you have it my friends, the closest to homemade that I can get! I promise to document my trip to the farm when it is open and perhaps the second time around it will work out just right!