Enchilada Sauce

Our tomatoes have been weird.

Really weird.

I'm sure it was the heat and drought.    The heat and drought toughened up their skins.

Then it rained and rained and those tomatoes grew, but the tough skins didn't grow - they split.   The vast majority of tomatoes we've gotten have split skins.

And the damp from all that rain encouraged the romularia spot and it flourished and all the leaves turned yellow and brown and  then died.   It was pathetic.   

Then there was the bird from hell that would land on a vine and just take random bites out of the very best and most beautiful tomatoes.  I probably lost 1/3 to 1/2 of my tomatoes that way.    We finally had to net the whole tomato bed to keep the blasted thing out.

But every once in a while, I'd bring in a bunch of tomatoes - mostly grape tomatoes and damaged bigger ones, and we'd chop them up and can them.    Ugly tomatoes are tasty, too.

The last batch we didn't have time to watch, so Eric put the whole bunch in our big new oval crock pot.  It was filled to the top and we cooked it for two days -  cooking it down, down, down until we had just over a half a gallon of tomato goo left.   Then I sieved the whole mess through my chinois so that there wouldn't be any skins because the kids hate skins.

[I rolled my eyes the whole time, but I did it.   Because I'm a good Mom.   And because Eric suggested that it was the nice thing to do.  And I needed the brownie points.

It occurs to me that I probably lost brownie points with every eye roll, huh.  Rats.]

And I made enchilada sauce to put up in jars.   Because I love enchiladas.  But I don't love making stuff like that at the last minute.    At the last minute, I just want to throw it all together.

So, here is the basic recipe for Enchilada Sauce by the quart.   Just multiply this by the number of quarts of cooked tomatoes or tomato sauce you have.  I adapted this recipe from the one in America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook.  

Enchilada Sauce

• 1 quart tomato sauce
• 3-4 Tablespoons chili powder
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 onion, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced

I cooked up the onion and garlic and then added the spices to that.  After that had heated through,  I added the tomato sauce at the end, heated it all to a boil and then put it in jars to seal up.   I ended up with exactly four pints.   I"m so happy!

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