Making bruschetta for garlic toast is going very well - this batch yesterday, and another 9 jars today, bringing the total so far to 18 jars. I've figured we'll use at least a jar a week, so I plan to prepare several more batches. I'm just waiting for the fruit to mature out in the garden.
While I was raising my kids I prepared my own spaghetti sauce, some years I was able to produce over 50 quarts. But we hardly ever eat pasta anymore, so I now serve bruschetta on garlic bread, topped with feta cheese.
It is time consuming to clean and prepare all the tomatoes, cutting out the odd parts. (Tomatoes from the garden have more irregularity and imperfections.) Once all of it is chopped and put in a non-reactive kettle (ceramic), I add balsamic vinegar, a lot of olive oil, sauteed onion and garlic, parsley, basil, oregano and hot peppers from my garden, and a little beef bullion granules in place of salt. All of this is simmered together; then I add pepper, tumeric, cumin, garam masala and frozen Mandarin orange concentrate. The garam masala, a spicy blend of spices in east-Indian cuisine, provides a thickening agent that soaks up some of the tomato juice. The orange juice provides sweetening if that is needed.
Every batch that I make has different uses. The batch I made today will be used in Tagine and east-Indian stews as a flavorful base for other ingredients. I blenderized 1/3 of the batch to make it thicker. Now, it is a matter of carefully labeling each batch, so I will know the bruschetta from the Tagine Sauce.
While the next batch of tomatoes ripen, I'm hoping to process some of our plums, to make a Plum Sauce for barbecuing. It will have Worcestershire sauce, fresh ginger, prepared mustard, soy sauce, chili sauce, lemon concentrate, chopped garlic and onions, and olive oil. This sauce will work well with barbecued spareribs or chicken.
