Using Tomatoes

We have a bit of a tomato glut at present, and as many of them are rather large, I've been thinking of different ways to use them up. Their fresh flavour is a bit blah...kind of floury without much juice (still trying to work out why). I have found that once cooked they taste like all good tomatoes should though!

Last week I had a go at making a big pot of tomato soup, and this week Mum and I did some pasta sauce. Tomato soup is so easy to make. I lightly fried an onion, then used about 8 big tomatoes and a zucchini, together with some parsley and spinach from the garden, added 1/4c of red split lentils, some paprika, sweet chilli sauce and salt and covered half of it with water before cooking. I think tomatoes on their own with garlic and/or onion would be completely fine; the extras in this just added more flavour, vitamins and substance!

I have eaten quite a few big bowls of steaming tomato soup over the past week! For this one, I added half a tin of baked beans, a slice of spelt toast, and a sprinkle of parmesan for a complete meal.

The pasta sauce smelled absolutely delicious as it cooked the other night! And so it should. It had garlic, marjoram, oregano, italian parsley, rosemary and thyme from the garden, plus a few onions and some salt. Yum yummy! The big pot was full to the top, and we now have lots of little pasta sauce bags in the freezer. I imagine we'll need to do another lot in a week or so to use up the next batch of tomatoes. Not that I mind. I happen to be quite partial to pasta with tomato sauce and cheese.