The life cycle of canned tomatoes

It's fun and challenging to use up the contents of the fridge before a trip. Last night we had pizza with tomato sauce and arugula. I had originally intended to use up our lump of fresh mozzarella on this pizza, but it turned out that it was a good sight more used up already than I had thought. Fortunately, there was a lump of goat cheese, left over from the stuffed eggplant. So on that went, and it did very well, even if pizza with goat cheese and arugula sounds rather horribly like an item on a pretentious 1989 restaurant menu.

I am a big proponent of the less-is-more approach to topping my pizza, so I used up only the tiniest bit of the big can of tomatoes I opened last night. The rest was turned into gazpacho, which we'll eat tonight. It's a little goofy to have canned-tomato gazpacho in July, but the current ripe tomato offerings are only so-so. Besides, these tomatoes need to be eaten, and good canned tomatoes (I use Muir Glen, but San Marzano are also very nice) taste good! Below are instructions for doing exactly what I did; if all you want is the soup, you could combine some steps.

MAKING THE SAUCE
Open a large (28 oz) can of whole plum tomatoes. Pluck about two thirds of the tomatoes from the can, leaving the juices. In fact. give each tomato a little squeeze over the can -- there will be a pocket of unneeded juice in each one. Cut the tomatoes into large chunks and put in a bowl (if you have an immersion blender) or the pitcher of your blender or the bowl of your food processor. Chop two or three cloves of garlic, and add those. Add a tablespoon of olive oil, some chopped fresh basil, a pinch of oregano, salt, and pepper. Blend to a rough puree. You may use a few tablespoons of this for your pizza. Don't cook it before you put it on the pizza; it's much tastier that way.

MAKING THE GAZPACHO
Take the remaining tomatoes from the can and chop them roughly, into pieces of a size you would like to encounter in your soup. Add them and the juices to your remaining sauce. Now add to this mixture:

a tablespoon of cider vinegar
one small red onion, minced
one small bell pepper, red, yellow, or green, minced
a squirt of hot sauce, to taste
a sprinkle of chipotle powder, if you have it, or chili powder if you don't
some finely chopped cilantro, if you like that

Taste and adjust seasonings. Cover and put in the fridge for at least four hours, preferably overnight and through the next day.

Posted by redfox at July 25, 2002 09:51 AM (dinner reports)

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