00Hidden vegetable tomato base sauce recipeMy 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.
