Saving the Harvest: Roasted Tomato Sauce

It's Autumn in my little corner of the world, which means produce is at it's most abundant and it's time to start storing things away for the winter. I have preserved excess tomatoes and fruit for the past few years and it is always such a treat to open a jar of fresh-tasting tomato sauce or juicy peaches in the middle of winter. After weeks and weeks of pumpkin, apples and greens, a taste of summer can be a welcomed change. I am going to do a little series called 'Saving the Harvest', on some of the ways I like to put away excess for the winter.

I was lucky enough to be given a few kilos of organic Roma tomatoes, and as time was short, this batch was turned quickly into three pottles of roasted tomato sauce for the freezer. This sauce is great on pasta, as a casserole base, as a baked bean sauce or as a starter for a multitude of different soups. It's a little more flavoursome than a standard passata, but neutral enough to lend itself to a variety of different meals. This is a very loose recipe, that can be adjusted to suit the quantity of tomatoes you have on hand.

Roasted Tomato Sauce
Ripe, red tomatoes
Olive oil
Balsamic vinegar
Herbs, roughly chopped
Salt and pepper

De-stem the tomatoes and roughly chop in quarters. Place in a baking dish or roasting pan and cover with a good slug of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Season generously with salt and pepper and a handful of herbs of your choice (I used basil, thyme and rosemary for my latest batch) and toss to combine. Roast in a 180 degree oven for 1.5-2 hours, stirring occasionally. Once cool, push through a sieve or mouli to remove skin, pour into pottles in serving-sized  portions and freeze. If sieving, the paste left over is also great as a rich flavour explosion to add to pizza bases, casseroles or soups. I freeze this in ice cube trays for easy access to the right amount!

Pickled Gherkins

One of my most familiar and memorable smells from childhood is pickling vinegar, boiling away on the stove, to be added to gherkins or pickled onions. That smell still sends me back, and maybe that is why I am such an avid preserver today...

Last year I grew my own gherkins, but this year I sacrificed the space for corn. Luckily, I was able to get a few kilos through a local market garden, which should keep this gherkin addict happy for a few months. I cut the large ones into rounds and the medium-sized ones into length-way quarters. If I had any small ones, I would preserve these whole. This is my mum's recipe, taken from an old DYC vinegar pamphlet. Made with malt vinegar, these gherkins are face-wrinkling-ly good, and put the insipid supermarket alternatives to shame!

Pickled Gherkins
1.5 kg gherkins, scrubbed to remove any prickles
1/2 cup salt
2 litres cold water
6 cups malt vinegar
3/4 cup sugar
3 cloves garlic
6cm piece root ginger
3 small chillis
1 tsp peppercorns (I forgot to add these!! Opps..)
1 tsp whole cloves
1 tsp allspice berries

Slice prepared gherkins into desired sizes.

 Dissolve salt in water and soak cleaned gherkins in brine solution for 24 hours.

Drain and rinse well with cold water. Drain and rinse again. Pack drained gherkins into clean jars.

Simmer vinegar, sugar, garlic, chilli, ginger and spices tied in a muslin bundle for 15 minutes.

 

Discard muslin bundle and pour hot vinegar over gherkins to cover completely. Seal with non-metallic (or coated) lids. Store for six weeks at least, before using.

When I grew my own, I had a drip-feed supply, as they ripened on the vines. To manage this, I boiled up the vinegar solution, and placed it in a large crock. As my gherkins ripened, I scrubbed and soaked them in brine overnight, and then progressively added them to the crock of vinegar as they were ready. I left the crock for a few months after I added the last batch.

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Apricot Honey AKA Summer in a Jar!

It is the middle of summer in New Zealand at the moment (although the weather may beg to differ), which means access to an abundance of incredible, fresh, local produce. While I am doing my bit to eat my fill of this selection, some certainly needs to be preserved for the long winter months. I picked up this recipe for Apricot Honey, when I visited a friends' family apricot orchard. We picked until our hearts and tummies were content, and I ended up with a supply of delicious fruit, as well as this amazing recipe. I only wish I could remember the name of the orchard so I could credit them with it!

Apricot Honey
12-15 fresh apricots, stones removed
3 cups dried apricots, soaked overnight in water
2 cups sugar
Juice of 2 lemons
100 grams butter
3 eggs, beaten

Place soaked, dried and fresh apricots in a pot and cover with water. Boil until tender and puree until smooth. Combine puree with sugar, lemon juice and butter and stir until the sugar dissolves. Add the beaten eggs and cook, stirring continuously until the mixture thickens. Bottle in sterilised jars and seal. Keep refrigerated.
Makes about 6 jars.

This mixture is utterly divine and tastes like summer in a jar. I will have to be sure not to eat it all now, so I will have some for winter! This honey is delicious on toast with butter, dolloped on yoghurt, in smoothies, and something I haven't tried yet but am sure would be amazing - folded into homemade ice cream!

Apricot honey on vanilla-poached rhubarb with yoghurt and cream!

Grapefruit and Tangelo Marmalade

A visit to Paddy's family homestead in the apptly-named Bay of Plenty for Christmas meant a supply of excess citrus fruit. I hate to see good produce go to waste, but there was far too much for the lucky owner of the trees to keep up with. Faced with such a huge bounty, I thought it was about time I had a go at making marmalade. Here is my recipe, adapted from a number of different books I consulted before setting out. This is a double recipe and makes about 4 delicious litres of marmalade. That equates to a lot of jars... It seems like an insane amount of sugar, but I did my calculations (from pounds to kilos) several times, and this is what I kept coming up with. Someone once told me to never alter the amount of suger in jam/marmalade or the amount of vinegar in chuntey, as it is the preserving agent, so I just went with it, and added all 9 kgs!
Recipe can be halved if desired.


Grapefruit and Tangelo Marmalade
10 tangelos
6 grapefruit
9 kgs of sugar
20 cups of water
Juice and zest of 4 lemons

Finely slice the grapefruit and tangelos. The size of the slices effects the final product, so take your time and do this properly or you will regret it! Cover the chopped fruit with the water and leave to soak overnight. 
The next day, bring the fruit and water to the boil and cook for about an hour, or until the fruit is soft. Then, add the sugar and boil until set (around 40 minutes). To tell if marmalade is set, freeze a saucer, place a dollop of marmalade on the saucer, leave it to cool amd run your finger through the middle of the dollop. If it stays parted, the marmalade is set. Bottle marmalade into sterilised jars and seal. Store in a cool, dark place and refrigerate when opened.

For a first atempt, I think this turned out pretty darm delicious. Admittedly, the produce I had to work with was AMAZING (many grapefruits were also consumed in their raw state), but I am going to take at least a little credit for the result!

Collecting grapefruit from the laden trees

The fruit, soaking overnight in water

The finished product. Excuse the dreary photo, it's a rainy day here!

On homemade wholemeal bread for breakfast this morning. Yum!!