First I tried to make chili using whole tomatoes instead of canned. I think I used too many tomatoes (issue #1) but the really big problem was they didn't break down and meld like chili usually does. I ended up with a crock pot of meat, cubed tomatoes, a lot of extra liquid and seasoning instead of a wonderful soupy blend of chili.
Monday night, I tried to make tomato sauce in the crock pot from whole tomatoes (using this recipe). It said it cook on high for at least three hours. I did that (at 7 p.m.), and 3 hours later had a crock pot of liquid, cubed tomatoes, and other ingredients. It was like warm bruchetta, not sauce. I kept cooking, and cooking, and at 5:45 a.m. (10 hours and 45 min later) I still had big chunks of tomatoes in that crock pot in a semi-liquidy sauce. I ended up pulsing it in the blender quick and moving on.
Does anyone have ANY recommendations? Is it the tomatoes I'm using? The ratio? Should they be cut smaller? The crock pot? Any help to answer my canned tomato conundrum is MUCH appreciated!!
First, I think it's awesome that you are being so conscious about what you are eating and buying. I give you a lot of credit for making that effort.
ReplyDeleteMy recipe for tomato sauce uses canned whole tomatoes that I pour into the blender to make a smooth sauce. So perhaps, blending the tomatoes partially or cutting them up in to smaller pieces will help the process? If you don't want them fully blended, maybe put them in a blender on the pulse setting to get them more crushed up than you could just cutting them.
Not sure if any of these will actually work, but I figured it couldn't hurt to throw a suggestion out there. :-)
Thanks so much for the suggestion! That's a great idea :)
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