Tomato day

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Introduction

The Hikers have been avoiding the bush over the last month - mostly cycling and swimming to avoid the heat and danger (fire, snakes) of the South Australian summer.

But we have been missing the blog and we would like to tell you about a very special event that happened last Saturday. This was the day that the Hikers learnt the secret of making tomato sauces in their backyard. The man with the secrets (add equipment) was Rito. Together we cooked up the yummiest and freshest tasting pasta and tomato sauces ever. It was a big day with all of us putting in a 10 hour shift - but we certainly slept well on Saturday night with our bellies full of pasta and wine.

I hope you enjoy the pictorial record of the event and the cooking tips. We are all very grateful to Rito for his amazing contribution to our current and future culinary delights.

Dan says ...

Hello Readers!

How long has it been since I last wrote to you. Ages it seems. I really think this could be a great blog entry - food - food - food - my favourite subject!

Boy was it great to make your own sauce - the smell of the onions, butter, olive oil was heavenly! But lunch was greater; Pasta, Infinite mountains of pasta .... with a river of delicious pasta sauce.

But it was hard work - we were zonked - but you do get something good at the end. We have already started to eat our way through it with some incredibly yummy dinners.

And now, what you have all been missing - a joke and a riddle ...

First, have you heard the one about the garbage can? Don't worry about it, it is a load of rubbish!
And second, a riddle

Q: I have spears in my back and and nails in my ribs, feet I do lack. What am I?









A: A sailing ship
Did you get it?

See you soon!

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Photos

A love affair with the tomato
To view as a slide show, click on the image and use the controls at the top to scroll through.

The tomatoes arrive
Yes that is 14 cases of Roma tomatoes arriving on Thursday night for airing and ripening for Saturday's event

Spread out
To help with the ripening the tomatoes were laid on cloth for a few days to turn red and sweet

Tools
Saturday - and time to set up the production line for 2 batches of pasta sauce and 1 batch of plain tomato sauce.

Washing and squeezing
The boys worked on producing the tomato pulp, by washing and squeezing to release the seeds

Tomato flesh
Ready for cooking the pasta sauce

Onions
Suitably protected, I had the job of dicing the onions

Onions in water
No frying - the onions are boiled in water until cooked.

Garlic and chilli
The garlic is lovingly prepared to avoid bruising.

Dried oregano
The package was crushed and the wire sieve used to separate the leaves

Cook up
Onions, tomatoes, olive oil, butter, oregano, salt, garlic and chilli - add heat and stir

Fresh basil
In the clean jars

Pour in and cap
Fabulous smell ...

First batch done
This made 70 x 750ml jars of sauce

Lunch time
First taste - sensational!

Second batch of sauce
In the background the third batch of tomatoes are being cooked in water until they split and then used to make sauce.

Cooked tomatoes
Squeezed to get juice out so pulp can be made into sauce

Italian sauce machine
Rito operates the sauce machine, catching the skins to be reprocessed for extra sauce

Sauce ready
A little salt and it is ready

Bottling the sauce
Peter on capping duty

The steriliser
The sauce bottles were layered in a 44 gallon drum, filled with water, boiled for an hour and then allowed to cool

All done
About 140 bottles of pasta sauce and 70 tomato sauce ready to store away - that is Italian food 4 times a week for the rest of the year - yummy!

Comments

[Bas]

Unbelievable!!!
What an unbelievable amount of tomatos and tomato sauce!! Are you going to eat it all yourselves? You can always send some over!! BR. Bas

[polly]

great! where did you get all of those tomatoes? Bellisimo! it would be nice to have the exact recipe as we are about to harvest the remains of our crop after the hail.

[SA hiker]

Tomato Source
Hi Polly, Rito organised the ingredients and jars. The tomatoes were from Victoria and, I believe, it was all organised through the Adelaide Fresh fruiterer at Prospect. To make 70 x 420ml jars of sauce there was 4-5 cases of tomates washed and de-seeded, 15 large red onions diced and cooked in water until soft, 12 cloves of garlic delicately diced (no chopping board - only in your hand), leaves of 1 dried oregano pack; 8 thin chillies thinly sliced, 1-2 cups salt, 500 g butter, a litre or more of olive oil (I didn't see this part I was just judging by what was left in the drum). The washed basil in the jar had a piece of flower as well as a leaf and we used 3-4 bunches for 70 jars. It is Rito's special recipe, but he said he made it up only 4 years ago. Love, Diana