TOMATO PASTE

Have you ever thought about making your own tomato paste?  Do you even use tomato paste?  Well, the answer to those 2 questions for me is YES.  I think it was 4 summers ago when we had this magnificent crop of tomatoes.  By that I mean I had so many beautiful tomatoes that they were running out of my ears.  God is good because he must have known that the next 2 years tomatoes were going to be horrible.  I canned so many types of stuff with tomatoes that year that it lasted us during those lean years.  Well, my tomato paste only lasted a few months into the winter.  It is good stuff.

I will warn you though that it takes a lot of tomatoes and lots of time.  You basically cook it like making tomato sauce and just keep on cooking it down and down and down until you get this thick gooey stuff.  To make it good, it will take at least a day.  

This year I will admit I made it due to being lazy.  I pretty much had picked the rest of my San Marzano tomatoes and thought I would make sauce but I just did not want to make it.  I have no reason why I just did not and now I am super glad I made paste instead.   

You need to start with lots of tomatoes.  You can use any type you wish.  I just used the last of my San Marzanos.

Dice them up.

Throw them in a pot and cook.  I threw a few chocolate cherry tomatoes in my pot too.  

Cook this down and then run it through a food mill to remove the seeds and skin.  Keep the seeds and skin to dehydrate to make tomato powder.

You will have a thin sauce left from the food mill.  Put this in a pot to cook down.  This step takes hours upon hours.  I did mine in a few days.  

So, if you have plenty of tomatoes and lots of time make some tomato paste.  I promise you it is much better than anything you could ever buy.  

Tomato Paste

Ingredients

• 10 pounds tomatoes 
• Salt per your taste

Directions

• Wash and drain your tomatoes.  
• Dice tomatoes and put into a large pot.  
• Cook until they are mushy, about 2 hours.
• Run mixture through a food mill to remove seeds and skins.
• Put the tomato sauce that is left from running all through a food mill back into a large pot.  Add salt per your taste.
• Cook down for at least 8 hours or until it is paste consistency.  

I freeze mine in 3 to 5-ounce portions to use for soups, stews, chili, and sauces for various Italian dishes.  Mine does not last very long but it can keep up to 6 months in the freezer.  

ENJOY!!