My son has requested lasagne for dinner tonight (it's his birthday) but I'd no pasta sauce left so time to make another batch of this my staple tomato base sauce. I have been making this sauce for around 6 years now and I always have some in my freezer. At the time my youngest was going through a phase of refusing most vegetables and things were getting pretty stressful around meal times. I had the idea of trying to blend some vegetables into a tomato sauce to use for pasta. So that was where I started - I added chopped carrots to tinned tomatoes and added a little stock as it got too thick. Once it was ready I blended it and tasted it and it was ok but I thought maybe there was a hint of carrot taste so I added some tomato puree and the carrotty taste was gone. Next time i made it I had done my homework online and found people doing similar things with an array of different veg so I got my trusty food processor out and blitzed all the veg I had left in my veg drawer from the week before - a pepper, some mushrooms, a sweet potato, 1/4 of a cabbage, a few sticks of celery and some carrots. I upped the amount of stock and added an extra tin of tomatoes. As it cooked I kept tasting it and added more tomato puree and some worcestershire sauce. Once it tasted like a tomato sauce I blitzed it with the hand blender and froze it in 400ml portion sizes. Remember I had made it as a pasta sauce originally but a couple of days later I was making a chicken tikka masala and Kyle hadn't eaten any veg all day so instead of adding 2 tins of chopped tomatoes I added 2 portions of my tomato pasta sauce. I served it up as usual and no one noticed any difference and so my tomato base sauce was 'invented'. Since then I have used all sorts of veg in it including those stir fry veg packs you get from the supermarket when I picked them up for 10p! I use it in every recipe that calls for tinned tomatoes which is why I don't add onions, garlic or any herbs or spices as they get added in the recipes separately. I even use it as a base for homemade pizzas! Have a go and let us know how you get on in the comments.
I add all the ingredients to a large pot, bring to the boil and then reduce heat to a simmer and put the lid on.
Then I reduced the heat and left to simmer for 45 minutes stirring occasionally until it was thick and glossy looking.
Then I blitzed it in the food processor in batches til it was fairly smooth - you can use a hand blender.
If your family are used to jars then you should probably have a taste now and if it's a bit 'bitter' then you can stir in some sugar to neutralise the tomatoes (Remember a 500g jar of dolmio has something like 6 tsp of sugar in it so you adding a couple to yours is still MUCH healthier). You can reduce the amount gradually each time you make it.
Ingredients
Directions
I add all the ingredients to a large pot, bring to the boil and then reduce heat to a simmer and put the lid on.
Then I reduced the heat and left to simmer for 45 minutes stirring occasionally until it was thick and glossy looking.
Then I blitzed it in the food processor in batches til it was fairly smooth - you can use a hand blender.
If your family are used to jars then you should probably have a taste now and if it's a bit 'bitter' then you can stir in some sugar to neutralise the tomatoes (Remember a 500g jar of dolmio has something like 6 tsp of sugar in it so you adding a couple to yours is still MUCH healthier). You can reduce the amount gradually each time you make it.