Home grown tomatoes and my first ever Tomato sauce!

It was a very spontaneous decision to buy three tomato plantlets whe I saw them in the market. I was amazed at how well they grew in my kitchen garden. I also learnt for the first time a few basic things about tomatoes, like, for example, that one needs to pinch off the side shoots just when they start to show up. If they have grown a bit longer then just cut them up and throw them down on the ground where the tomato is growing, apparently they like it. And for the first time I got many tomatoes, but usualy one or two at a time and also with long waitings in between. But then, my happiness knew no bounds when I for the first time, after waiting for so long, got enough tomatoes to be able to make something like a chutney or a sauce.
So, I started searching for some recipes and came across a number of good ones. But then I settled for this one at Aayi's recipes as this seemed to me to be the closest to how I imagined my chutney with a number of ingredients I also wished to have in my preparation.

Tomato sauce

Based on the recipe of Tomato pickle at Shilpa's Aayis Recipes

Ingredients:

1 kg tomatoes, washed and chopped finely (all from my kitchen garden!)
1 tsp Fenugreek seeds
1 tsp Sesame seeds
1 tsp mustard seeds
1 tbsp rapeseed oil
2 large garlic cloves, grated or crushed
1 inch piece of ginger, grated
1 tsp tamarind paste (also works as an acidifier)
1/2 tsp turmeric powder (I left it out)
5 g citiric acid (1packet of Dr. Oetker)-neccessary to make the sauce acidic enough
1 tsp whole cane sugar (jaggery)
3 1/2 tbsp gelly sugar (contains pectin in addition)
1 tsp salt or to taste
1 pinch red chilli powder (or to taste)


Method:

• Roast the 3 seeds in rapeseed oil in a deep saucepan till they smell good on medium heat
• add the tomatoes, stir and cook for further 5 minutes
  
• add the remaining ingredients, mix and cook for another 5 minutes covered
  
• Remove the saucepan from heat and puree with a hand blender
• Cook further for another 10 minutes covered*
  
• store in boiled jars with twist off lids (check the link)
  
• And let them cool down before placing them in the fridge

I used the leftover gelly sugar I had from my previous experiments I'll be talking about soon to make the sauce a bit thicker, as my tomatoes were very watery. Maybe had I used a larege flat frypan or sauté pan it would have thickened faster, but I think if you want to preserve something for long it is better to use a deeper saucepan and the lid should be kept covered , keeping the spoon with a long handle in the pan all th time, so there is some space for the steam to escape as wll.

*NOTE: Cook for atleast 10 minutes or longer, till you feel that it can be preserved for long in that state.
Do read the guide lines of canning in my link before trying to preserve yorself, if you are a beginner.

And now coming to the results. I made a sauce , at least a tomato sauce like this for the first time. And all i can think of is, "why did I wait sooooo long to try it?!". It is such a wonderful taste I have never tasted before in a tomato sauce. I love this sauce and it will surely go into my tried and tasted and passed recipes which are then preserved in my precious folder with such special recipes. Thank you Shilpa for this wonderful experience which I could have with my home grown tomatoes!

This post goes to this month's MBP event started by Coffee and being hosted this month by Rachel of Tangerine's Kitchen.

And of course I will send this one to Grow your own at Andrea's Recipes, being hosted this time by Andrea herself, the initiator of this wonderful event.

Arugula Tomato Raita (stirred yoghurt with arugula and tomatoes)

...with home grown tomatoes!

Now this is such a simple dish that you might wonder why I'm posting it here.
Well, for two reasons. First of all it contains my very first ever home grown pesticide-free organically manured garden tomatoes. Secondly, because I just love this creation of mine, however simple it may be.
Now, if you have eaten arugula, then you know what I'm talking about. If not, these are a wonderful variety of salad leaves with a wonderfully pleasant pungent and spicy flavour, similar, but only similar, to that of radish beans (beans of the radish plants), if you have eaten them.
Although since my visit to Italy last year I know arugola is not always arugola. I knew about the difference between the varieties available in the US, which were much milder in taste than those available here in Germany, but after having eaten those wildly growing spicy and pungent arugola leaves and flowers in a village near Bari, I was so overwhelmed by its rich flavours that I needed time to get adjusted to these varieties available in the markets back here which almost tasted bland in comparison to those I ate in Italy last September.
And that brings me back to the second reason of my writing this post. These arugola leaves I bought this time tasted the nearest to those from Italy and since I love this green salad I had just chopped some leaves into the yoghurt and added one tomato from my garden into my Raita and I had a delicious side to the paranthas in no time.

Preparation time: 10 minutes
serves 2-4 people

Ingredients:

300 -450 g probiotic Yoghurt
1/2 tsp ground roasted cumin seeds
1/4 tsp black salt (available in Indian and Asian shops)
1/4 tsp table salt (regular salt), or to taste
1 pinch chilli powder (or even more; optional)
1 nice bunch of Arugola leaves, chopped coarsely into large pieces
1 large tomato, chopped


Method:

• Stir yoghurt throughly along with the salt and roasted cumin
  
• just before serving, add the chopped leaves and tomatoes and stir gently
• eat it plain, as it is, or served with other Indian savourys like paranthas or rotis or even rice (check previous post for it too!)