Here’s super-mum Clare’s next food blog instalment. Can you believe this woman had time to do Tough Mudder at the weekend! I don’t know what is more challenging, a 12 mile hardcore obstacle race or looking after 4 children!

Take it away Clare…

Sometimes life is so busy with these four little ones that my feet barely touch the ground. Often if I have had a crazy busy day I find myself at 5pm in despair at the fridge struggling to find something to cook. My 3 boys often come home from school ravenous so I’m in panic mode if I haven’t prepared something.

That’s when this fantastic tomato sauce comes in. It’s a great staple to have sitting in the freezer; there is so much you can do with it.

This month we’ll look at 2 different ways to cook with it, starting off with this very delicious Cod and chorizo stew.

Fantastic Tomato Sauce

Ingredients:

• 5kg ripe vine tomatoes
• 5 shallots, sliced finely
• 1/2 head of garlic, peeled and finely sliced
• 1 red chilli, deseeded and halved
• 250ml olive oil, plus extra for drizzling
• 4 tbsp. red wine vinegar
• 4 tsp. caster sugar
• 1 tin of organic chopped tomato (I add this if I am making a huge batch)

Method:

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C/fan 180 degrees C/gas 6

Wash the tomatoes and then cut into halves.

Place the halved tomatoes on 2 roasting trays, drizzle the oil over the tomatoes and season with sea salt and freshly ground pepper. Roast for around 35 minutes or until nicely softened.

In a large frying pan heat the 250ml of oil, add the chopped shallot, chilli and garlic.

Gently fry on a very low heat for 10 minutes until the onion is lovely and soft.

After 10 minutes remove from the heat, leave to cool, this will enable to flavours to infuse together nicely. Strain the oil through a sieve and discard the shallot, chilli and garlic mixture.

You will have gorgeous fragrant oil.

In a heavy bottomed pan pour the infused oil and gently warm through on a medium heat.

Remove the tomatoes from the oven. With the back of a fork crush the tomato, once you have crushed all the tomatoes pour into the oil.

Simmer for around 5 minutes and then add the caster sugar and red wine vinegar.

If I am making a big batch I tend to add the tin of tomatoes now and then simmer for 30 minutes or until you have a lovely rich tomato sauce.

If you are freezing the sauce ready for another day, divide into equal portion and place in your chosen container. Once cooled, place in the freezer.

*Please note that the garlic, chilli and shallots are only to infuse the oil and then discarded, if left in when freezing the flavour could become too strong.

(Tomatoes cut in half prior to going in the oven)

Tomatoes halves after being roasted in the oven for around 35 minutes

Frying off the shallots, chilli and garlic in oil

Straining the oil

The finished tomato sauce

Cod and chorizo stew

Ingredients:

• A portion of the fantastic tomato sauce
• Cod fillets – I normally serve 1 per person
• 200g raw chorizo sliced into chunks
• 200g jar of roasted red peppers – drained and sliced
• A few thyme leaves

Method:

Defrost the sauce if using from the freezer.

Place in a heavy bottomed pan and gently heat through, add the red peppers and the thyme leaves.

Meanwhile fry the chorizo until slightly crispy and the oils have released. Place in the tomato sauce along with the oil.

Add the cod fillets and cover with the sauce.

Then cook until the fish is cooked through, I find this normally takes around 10 minutes but can vary depending on how thick the cod is. It’s that easy!

We all enjoy this dish served with boiled rice and a nice crusty bread to dip in the sauce. Yummy, enjoy!

Evie helping to stir the tomato sauce in her Indikidual leggings

Clare’s kids enjoying the Cod & Chorizo Stew

Keep a look out for the next post when we will be cooking another recipe with the sauce.

(I took inspiration for this dish from ‘Delicious Magazine’.)

www.clarekeylock.com

Thanks Clare for another awesome post! I’m very pleased to say that I have already given this one a go and we all had cod and chorizo stew for dinner on bank holiday monday.

Me proudly displaying my Cod & Chorizo Stew prior to serving up!

The tomato sauce took a wee while to cook but then the cod and chorizo stew was super quick. Having portions in the freezer would make this very quick to rustle up mid week (as Clare says above).

I halved the tomato sauce recipe which left me with 2 portions to freeze once I’d made the stew for my family of four. 

I served it up with pearl barley cooked in vegetable stock. We all mopped up the left-over sauce with bread and butter. Yum!

I’m really looking forward to Clare’s next instalment so that I can try something else with this delicious sauce.

As always, Wee love to hear from you so get in touch if you give this recipe a go and let us know what you think…