Tag Archives: Beef Tomatoes

October 24, 2012

Homemade Tomato Ketchup

I was very kindly given this glorious recipe last week by a friend and neighbour of my Mum and Dads in Herefordshire, Janette. My Mum had happened to mention quite how overrun I was with all our homegrown tommies and Janette suggested I used them to make Tommie Sauce and promptly emailed me the recipe that her mum had passed on to her that she’d always eaten as a child. How wonderful is that?.

I immediately set to to make it, just in the nick of time picking the last of our beef and plum tommies and a few of the still prolific cherries, and I couldn’t think of a better recipe to celebrate the end of one extremely hectic tomatoey summer. Incase you missed reading about all our tomatoes here’s my Tomato Veg of the Month Round Up. And although the tomato season is pretty much over for most people I couldn’t help myself in blogging it now rather than wait until next year, when undoubtedly I’ll be making many further batches!.

I should also mention that Janette is generally known to us as ‘Chocolate Janette’ as she so happens to own a small chain of gorgeous artisan chocolate shops in Ludlow, Worcester and Shrewsbury and an online business too, www.chocolategourmet.co.uk. Now that’s the sort of neighbour everyone needs!.

I have to admit to being extremely skeptical that a Homemade Tommie Sauce would meat the mark. The mark being the big H brand so known and loved. And how wrong was I? This recipe is superb, the kids couldn’t tell the difference and I would honestly go as far to say I preferred it, though it’s remarkably similar. I know we’re now at the end of the tomato year, but if you happen to come across some cheap and flavoursome tommies I urge you to make this, or bookmark it for next summer. It doesn’t take long at all, is foolproof simple and oh sooooooo good. I now have a serious addiction. In truth I’ve never been that huge on Tommie K though I do love it on a bacon butty, but now I’ve made my own it’s going on everything. I even made some homemade chips at the weekend to give it a thorough road test, and I don’t ever eat ketchup on chips. And I don’t have to tell you how good it was.

I’m not sure you can beat a bacon butty with homemade Tommie K, this was the second of the weekend!

Similarly my kids aren’t huge Tommie K addicts like some kids, but then I probably haven’t allowed them to be. It’s only ever brought out with chips, which are a pretty rare treat at Chez Foti. But now it’s on free flow they’re asking for it with everything!. It’s actually called ‘Bop Bop’ sauce in our house, bet no one can guess why?!

Jacques safeguarding his precious bottle of Bop Bop Sauce, that he enjoyed for lunch yesterday with his cheese on toast

As homemade Tommie K is technically a Preserve I’m also entering it to this month’s Tea Time Treats challenge, and it’s certainly a popular Tea Time Treat in our house now!. The blogging event it held jointly by Karen @ Lavender and Lovage and this month by Kate @ What Kate Baked.

The recipe below is pretty much exactly how Janette emailed it to me, though I used cider vinegar instead of the malt. Not to posh it up in any way, but you can’t buy malt vinegar in France. I also used a little less sugar as I didn’t feel it needed it all, but then my tommies were extremely ripe and sweet. I skinned my tomatoes first, which is really not at all tricky. Simply immerse them in boiling water for a minute then plunge into cold for a few moments, the skins will then effortlessly slip off. I didn’t bother with the straining (actually I started then promptly stopped as I didn’t want to waste so much goodness!) but gave the finished sauce a very good blitzing with a hand blender.

Homemade Tomato Ketchup

2700g (2.7 kilos) of ripe tomatoes

570ml of malt vinegar

225g of sugar

25g of salt

½ a teaspoon of allspice

½ a teaspoon of ground cloves

½ a teaspoon of cinnamon

a pinch of cayenne pepper

Special Equipment: Sterilised bottles or jars

Skin your tomatoes if preferred. Cut into rough quarters and simmer with the salt and vinegar until soft and broken.

Strain if you have not skinned then return the puree to the pan, add the sugar. Continue to simmer until the ketchup starts to thicken. Then add the spices a little at a time stirring thoroughly until the flavour is to your taste. I probably added a little more of each than the recipe called for.

When the ketchup is reasonably thick pour into sterilised hot bottles or jars and seal.

Please note it will be thicker when cold than hot, so don’t reduce it too far. If you like a more rustic texture with the seeds still in the sauce miss out the straining process.

And before I go, why ‘Bop Bop’ sauce? When the squeezy Tommie K sauce bottles are coming to an end (which ours is at the minute) the kids think the sound is hilarious, like a ‘bop bop’, which in case you (probably) need further explanation the kids call a ‘fart’ or bottom. And so Tommie K has become the ‘Bop Bop’ sauce!. My kids are very little, and Bops Bops are still one of the funniest things in their worlds!

Related blogs:

August & September in the Garden

Homemade Sun (aka Oven) Dried Tomatoes

: A Glut of Tomatoes Pasta Sauces

8 Comments | tags: Beef Tomatoes, Cherry Tomatoes, Glut of Tomatoes, Plum Tomatoes, Sauce, Tomato, Tomato Ketchup, Vinegar | posted in Bigger Kids, Preserves, Toddlers & Pre-schoolers

October 4, 2012

August and September Veg of the Month: The Tomato

By Eat Your Veg

There’s been no getting away from the summer of tomatoes at Chez Foti. A ridiculous amount. An obscene amount for a family of four. At my last count there were 72 plants, with self-seeded newbies appearing every day all over the plot, like some tomatoey horror B movie. I need to stop counting them! They’ve taken over my life these last few months with many an evening spent chopping, blanching, saucing, souping, chutneying or drying. Chez Foti’s been a bit of a tomato processing plant at times. The new and especially purchased chest freezer is now full to the brim. But luckily the harvest’s finally starting to subside, and will totally subside when the frosts start, probably very soon. And then it’ll all be over, bar a mountain of green tomatoes, until next year. And next year, mark my words, I will not be growing so many. No where near as many.

Of all the veggies (or indeed fruits) to have a glut of, tomatoes have to be the most versatile and useful, and can handily be cooked down to make all manner of wonderful sauces and soups to bring out all year round. And believe me I’ve made a few!. Here’s my favourite recipes for a glut: A Glut of Tomatoes Pasta Sauces (so useful to store in the freezer for pasta or pizza sauces), Homemade Sun Dried Tomatoes (I urge you try to these if you’ve a few tommies going spare, they’re truly sublime beyond sublime!), One Pot Ratatouille (can handily be frozen too). I’ve also been making many a tommie soup, though as yet haven’t blogged any recipes. One of my favourite recipes is Felicity Cloake’s Perfect Tomato Soup from the Guardian website. To be honest I reckon most people would struggle to beat this recipe, it’s totally the most perfect tommie soup you could wish to eat, aside from Heinz obviously.

Homemade Sun Dried Tomatoes

A Glut of Tomatoes Pasta Sauces

One Pot Ratatouille

Tomatoes have featured in pretty much every evening meal we’ve eaten at Chez Foti over the summer. And indeed many a breakie (tommies on toast!) and many a lunch (think soups, sandwiches, salads, tarts). Here’s my favourite dinner time tommie treats: Garden Pasta, Spaghetti alla Puttenesca with Fresh Tomatoes, Tagliatelle with Cherry Tomatoes & Mascarpone, A Couple of Tomato Tarts, Roasted Veggie Lasagne, Couscous with Roasted Veggies & Feta, Cheese, Tomato & Courgette Bread & Butter Pudding.

Garden Pasta with Griddled Courgettes, Cherry Tomatoes & Feta

Tagliatelle with Cherry Tomatoes & Mascarpone

Cheese, Courgette & Cherry Tomato Bread & Butter Pudding

As for the umteem of tomatoey salads dished up at Chez Foti, we’ve been munching our way through many a simple Tomato & Red Onion Salad through to my favourite Greek Salad and Tomato, Basil & Mozzarella Salad a plenty. Then there’s been the lightly more sophisticated Salad Nicoises and Roasted Tomato Salads and I’ve regularly thrown in a few homemade Sun Dried Tomatoes to liven up a plain green salad.

I’ve been pretty busy trying out fellow blogger’s tomatoey recipes too. There’s been the delicious Stuffed Tomatoes with Herbs and Oats from Karen @ Lavender and Lovage, I’ve now made these many an evening. I’ve also been baking and stuffing tomatoes with pork or lamb mince and just a simple and divine oozy goats cheese (thanks to Mr Nigel Slater!). Mr F’s is a huge fan of stuffed tomatoes in any form, so he’s one happy husband these days!.

Lavender and Lovage’s Beef, Herb & Oat Stuffed Tommies

I’ve been making several loaves of Kitchen Ninja’s delicious Tomato, Courgette & Basil Bread which is oh so perfect with tommie soup. I urge you make this!. The Tomato Gratin from Laura @ How to Cook Good Food is wonderful, served simply with some fresh french bread on the side, as is the heavenly Goats Cheese & Oven-Dried Tomato Pappardelle from Keith @ Reluctant Housedad. And I have to mention the divine tomatoey heaven of Vanesther’s Slow Roasted Tomato & Oregano Pizza from the award winning Bangers and Mash Chat blog. Last but not least I have to mention the deeeelicious Tomato Relish from A Wee Bit of Cooking, just perfect with my Barbecue Burgers or even in a cheese sandwich (goats cheese in particular!).

A Wee Bit of Cooking’s Tomato Relish

So that’s it for my rather long Tomato Veg of the Month round up blog. Believe me I still have a list of tomatoey recipes as long as my arm to make, blog or try and I haven’t been nearly as inventive as I’d wanted to, but time as usual has got the better of me. It’s been a hectic couple of months of school holidays, holidays to the UK and rentree back to school (for both littlies, eek!). I’m hoping though to bring a few more tomato treats to you before they’re finished for the year (and even then I’ve an entire freezer full to blog about!). I narrowly missed entering July’s One Ingredient Tomato Challenge (held jointly by Laura at How to Cook Good Food and Nazima at London Working Mummy) waiting for mine to ripen, but there’s a whole host of wonderful recipes to try, and wonderful blogs to peruse.

October’s all about the squash and pumpkin.…as we’ve more than a few of those too! I’d love to hear your favourite uses, ideas and recipes.

Did you catch my other Veg of the Months? July Veg of the Month: The Courgette, June Veg of the Month: Swiss Chard.

Louisa

Felicity Cloake’s Perfect Tomato Soup with Kitchen Ninja’s Courgette & Tomato Bread

12 Comments | tags: Beef Tomatoes, Cherry Tomatoes, Plum Tomatoes, Tomato | posted in Veg of the Month

August 23, 2012

One Pot Ratatouille

By Eat Your Veg

Baby Foods & Weaning 7-9 Months plus, Toddlers & Small Children, Older Kids, Grown Ups

We love ratatouille at Chez Foti, and it’s a regular feature on our dinner table throughout the summer. Originally from Provence, it’s a classic Southern French veggie side dish, and made with good quality (preferably organic) tomatoes, peppers, courgettes and aubergines it’s utterly delicious and bursting with vibrant summer flavour. My kids have always loved it too, they eat it these days on a bed of pasta or couscous with a few cheesie sprinkles (they LOVE their sprinkles!). Last summer when they were considerably smaller (and fussier) I diced all the veggies to a smaller size, as large chunks seemed to put them off. And when Jacques was really tiny and weaning I whizzed up my ratatouille with a stick blender and served it to him with baby pasta stars. If you’re making for babies or little kids do not add any salt.

Us grown up folk prefer to eat our ratatouille in a large shared bowl (with a luxurious drizzle of extra virgin olive oil over the top) with plenty of fresh bread and maybe the odd sneaky merguez sausage on the side. It’s great served as a veggie side dish to a roast or cold cuts too, or with pasta or couscous like the kids.

My ratatouille recipe is probably somewhat old school now, in that it’s made as I’ve always made it with all the veggies in one big pot. It seems that most modern recipes call for the roasting or sauteing then layering of each of the veggies separately and diss my old fashioned all-in-one stew method. I personally like it both ways, but Mr F (who’s a big ratatouille fan) and the kids prefer this one pot wonder way….which is also quicker and requires less washing up!

Like all our dinners over the summer the veggies were all freshly picked from the garden, though admittedly I had to buy some peppers as mine are very slow to fruit this year. The courgettes, tomatoes (well obviously!), aubergine, garlic, onions, thyme and bay were all Chez Foti. It really is rather special being able to walk out of the front door and pick all your dinner’s ingredients, and after a year and a half of growing my own the novelty most certainly isn’t waining. And I hope it never does.

I’m entering this blog to the lovely Herbs on Saturday challenge, held by Karen at Lavender and Lovage.

Ratatouille

Enough as a main for four big people, or several more as a side dish:

4 tablespoons of olive oil

a very large or two medium white or red onions, medium dice

4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

a large aubergine or two small

2 peppers (preferably a red and a green one, or two reds)

2 courgettes

a small glass of white wine (optional)

700g of fresh chopped tomatoes (3 or 4 very large) (OR 600g of good quality tinned chopped tomatoes)

3 bay leaves

several sprigs of fresh thyme (be generous!)

a teaspoon of sugar

salt and pepper

Dice your veggies. If cooking for bigger kids and adults try to cut the peppers, aubergines and courgettes to a similar 3 cm ish slice size. I slice the aubergines into rounds (of about 4 to 5mm thick) then quarter the slices (or eighth if very large). The courgettes are sliced to the same thickness then cut in half (or quartered if very large). If making specially for babies (that do lumps) or toddlers cut to a much finer, more acceptable to them, dice.

Make a small bouquet garni of the herbs by tying together the bay leaves and thyme sprigs with string.

Heat the oil in a large saucepan or casserole. Add the onions and saute on a medium heat for 5 minutes. Then add the garlic and allow to cook for a further minute. Next throw in the aubergines and peppers followed by the courgettes about 5 minutes later. Stir frequently so nothing catches.

Pour in the white wine (if using) and allow to simmer for a few minutes until much reduced. Now stir in your chopped tommies, bouquet garni, sugar, a generous amount of back pepper and salt (go easy on the pepper and no salt for babies and small children). Bring everything to a simmer, stirring from time to time, and allow to cook on a fairly gentle heat for about 45 minutes partially covered with the lid. The veggies should be very tender and tomatoes much reduced.

Have a final taste check, adding more pepper, salt and sugar to taste (no added salt for babies or small children though). Fish out the bouquet garni and serve hot or cold.

Eat and enjoy as you so desire!

How about trying some of my other summery recipes? Garden Pasta, Tagliatelle with Cherry Tomatoes & Mascarpone, Paella, 70s Flashback Stuffed Marrow or A Couple of Tomato Tarts?

3 Comments | tags: Aubergine, Bay, Beef Tomatoes, Courgette, Couscous, French, Peppers, Plum Tomatoes, Provence, Thyme, Tomato, White Wine | posted in Baby Foods & Weaning, Family Dinners, Mains, Mid-Week Suppers, One Pot Wonder, Stews & Casseroles, Toddlers & Pre-schoolers, Vegetarian, Veggie Sides

August 13, 2012

A Glut of Tomatoes Pasta Sauces!

By Eat Your Veg

It’s the war of the tomatoes this week (and month) at Chez Foti, there’s a daily battle between myself and the ridiculously extravagant sixty three tomato plants I’ve somehow ended up with (an over exhuberance in seed sowing and a problem number of self-seeders literally fruiting up all over the plot!). Every day I fill an enormous basket worth (with the help of my two little tomato pickers – see pics below) and use up every minute of available time (which is never all that much with a two and a nearly four year old to entertain too) transforming them into something tasty for the future. An inordinate amount of my time seems to be spent chopping tomatoes. But there’s always a tray full of surplus at the end of the day, and today I now have two trays worth. And we’re only at the beginning of the tomato season. Our new chest freezer’s meanwhile filling up nicely, it arrived last week just in the nick of time. I fear we’ll be ordering another before the end of the summer.

My daily pickings, beef and cherry tomatoes mainly at the minute but the plum tomatoes are just starting too

Today in the Chez Foti Battle of the Tomatoes it was the turn of the pasta sauces, a roasted in the oven with thyme and garlic Cherry Tomato Sauce and a slow cooked on the hob with garlic and plenty of oregano Beef Tomato Sauce. Both are divinely simple but packed full of intense flavour through slow cooking, good quality olive oil and plenty of fresh from the garden herbs. Great to use just as they are as a pasta or pizza sauce or sublime with a stirring through of a little creme fraiche and/or balsamic, fresh basil or oregano….and then topped with a further drizzle of good quality olive oil (or chili oil) or Parmesan. Happy days! I’ve also used these as a base for a very rich tomato soup or thinned down (with milk and water) as a sauce for meatballs.

My kids adore both these sauces as much as we do, and they make a super quick and healthy pasta supper when short on time. Which is just as well as I now have half a freezer full. I tend to stir a little creme fraiche into the sauce for the littlies making it extra creamy, and I also go easy on the salt content.

Pasta & Tommie Sauce in my gorgeous Oogaa bowls

As a fair whack of my herb garden has been going into these tomato sauces I thought it more than appropriate to enter this post to the lovely Herbs on Saturday blog challenge held by Karen at Lavender and Lovage. There’s always plenty of gorgeous herby recipes to check out each month so keep the page bookmarked!

Roasted Cherry Tomato Sauce with Thyme and Garlic

About a kilo of cherry tomatoes

Maldon sea salt (or similar)

Freshly ground black pepper

Several sprigs of fresh thyme

6 cloves of garlic (un-peeled)

3 tablespoons of good quality extra virgin olive oil

Heat your oven to 160ºC.

Fill an oven tray with whole cherry tomatoes (which is about a kilo, maybe a little more). Sprinkle over a generous pinch or two of black pepper and Maldon (or similar) sea salt. Remove the leaves from some of the thyme sprigs and scatter over, leave some whole. Nuzzle in the whole sprigs and un-peeled garlic cloves where you have space. Drizzle over the olive oil.

Bake in the oven for about 45 minutes until the tomatoes are completely soft and collapsing.

Remove the thyme sprigs and garlic. Tip the tomatoes into a food processor or blender, making sure you fully scrape off all the lovely residue and oil from the tray. Squeeze out the goey goodness from each of the garlic cloves into the tomatoes too. Whiz until you have a super smooth sauce. Alternatively tip the tommies and garlic into a bowl and use a stick blender to do the whizzing (my preferred method as there’s less washing up!). Have a taste check and add more salt and pepper to suit.

A Slow Cooked on the Hob Tomato & Fresh Oregano Pasta Sauce

About a kilo of larger than cherry tomatoes, any variety. I used beef as that’s what I have

6 tablespoons of good quality extra virgin olive oil

8 cloves of garlic

a teaspoon of sugar

a couple of pinches of Maldon sea salt (or similar)

a couple of generous pinches of freshly ground black pepper

a few sprigs of fresh oregano, leaves removed. Be generous!

Chop up all your tomatoes to a medium dice. I tend to use the skin and seeds but not everyone likes to, so remove if you wish.

Heat the oil in a very large saucepan or stock pot on a lowish heat. Fry the garlic for a couple of minutes and at the point when it’s just starting to take on some colour tip the tomatoes into the pan. It’s important not to burn the garlic or this will taint the sauce.

Stir in the pepper, salt and sugar and bring to a simmer on a medium heat. Once simmering turn the temperature down to the lowest setting and allow to bubble away for about an hour until much reduced and considerably thickened. Half way through the cooking time stir in the oregano leaves.

Allow to cool for a few minutes before whizzing up in a processor or blender, or a stick blender straight into the pan, until you have a super smooth sauce. Have a taste check and add more salt and pepper to suit.