Thursday, February 18, 2010

You scratch my back....

5kg's of tomatoes from a friend who has them rotting on the ground have found their way into this recipe from Animal~Vegetable~Miracle.



The advice on the recipe is to take an afternoon and have a friend - the friend is for conversation and the afternoon because that is actually how long it takes. I didn't think I needed the afternoon so started too late - 4pm and was still busy at 10pm. For friendship I had my children helping me in shifts with chopping.



It is a very interesting recipe as you start off with 16 cups of tomato puree (we had more but it still worked) and then you add some ingredients.



You allow it to cook down a bit and then take out enough for 7 jars of relish or BBQ sauce.



Then you add some more ingredients...boil up and then take out another 7 jars of sweet and sour sauce.



Then at the last step you have a very thick substance to which you add raisins and walnuts, heat up and decant to make a tomato based chutney.



This yielded 21 jars of the different sauces and then a whole bowl of chutney left over which I shared with friends.

The manager of the farm got 5 jars of the different sauces in return for the tomatoes. As he is a single youngish man he was so grateful for this. The week before I was able to turn another 4 kgs of his tomatoes into a delicious pasta sauce with carrots and celery and lots of garlic. I got to keep half of this and froze it in portions (I ran out of jars!) and he got three jars for his own use...I think this arrangement works well.



On Monday I should be able to get another couple of KG's for us to make something else for both our stores.

7 comments:

Kelly-Anne said...

Wow! This is homesteading at it's best! Well done! Hazel (Kelly's mom)

Genesis said...

I love this idea! What a great way to get everything done in one go. If my tomato plants ever grow up, I'll be trying this.

Urban Homestead South Africa said...

It was a great idea...took long though so just budget enough time!

Unknown said...

I just discovered your blog, and i'm hooked. I have the same arrangement with a friend. She provides the produce and I do the processing and add the other ingredients and we share the result. Very good arrangement. Keep up the good work.

Cath said...

Oh dear, trying same recipe and also started late :-(

How did you make your puree to start with?

Urban Homestead South Africa said...

Hi cath I just quartered them and then put them on a gentle heat until soft then used my hand blender to blitz it all smooth. X

Cath said...

Did you remove seeds and skins first?

I rubbed my puree through a sieve and it took forever.