Totally Saucey

So the other day for Australia day we had some good old mince meat pies, with home made sauce. Which made me think. I hadn't put up the little photo story of where it came from! So, lets return to a time when people weren't freezing to death, the fruit and veg were fresh and you could open a window without losing an appendage to frost bite.

A time of pumpkins, sunflowers and spring onions.

My brand spanking new preserving jars (now I feel like my parents!)

5kg's of fresh sweet tomatoes soaking in their tub aka the sink

Some friends that will be joining the tomatoes in their "sauna"

I decided not to skin the tomatoes first as the weather was so hot we didn't want to cook the house. So I started chopping, not Chopin.

Don't forget to cut up a kilo of sweet white onions also called sugar onions.

Wack them into the biggest pot you have.

Along with measures of brown sugar, sea salt, all spice, and cloves

Distributed ever so elegantly.

After getting to the boil and then simmering for what seemed days we get a nice thicker sauce

Which gets even thicker after you work through the lumps and remove the skins, as you can see this is old school style

Then you end up with some great bottles of sauce. I made some in varying strengths of Chilli hence the number of chillies on the bottles

So there you have it. How did it taste? Well bloody marvellous, in fact the spicier the better but I hoarded all that for myself only to use it all in a matter of weeks. It was seriously that good. Also the fact that I, like many Australians, love tomato based sauces with just about anything from eggs to ham, to beef, to pork to cheese. Nothing like a cheese and sauce sandwich! So much for being a refined "foodie".