Tomato "chutney/jam"

Hi all

I've been on this diet for 64 days now, wow, it sounds very short if I put it like that!

Yesterday I broke the 100kg barrier, yes, I am down to double digits, I think this was probably my biggest goal to date and it feels so good to have broken it!

A week ago I went to a local fresh goods market.  They had a special - 3 X 500g packets of mini Rosa tomatoes for R10 ($1.30), I bought 3 packets thinking that I would quickly go through them, alas, a week later I still had two packets left, and they were starting to become less firm and pleasing to eat out the packet.

So naturally I decided to turn them into something delicious, so delicious, you won't even believe it's good for you!

Slow tomato sauce

• 500g baby Rosa tomatoes
• 5 cloves of garlic, chopped
• small hand full of thyme sprigs
• 1 400g tin of chopped tomatoes
• 1 large onion, sliced
• 1/2 teaspoon of ground cumin
• salt and pepper to taste
• a few drops of liquid artificial sweetner to taste

Heat your oven to 200 degrees Celsius and spray an oven proof dish with non-stick spray.  Put the tomatoes, garlic and thyme into the dish and bake for about 20 minutes, or until the tomatoes start bursting at the seams.

Brown the onion in a heavy casserole, you can use a little oil, but if you don't want to, it's not the end of the world if the onions aren't brown, they'll cook soft.

Now you can add the tomatoes from the oven (the reason for keeping the thyme spigs whole is so you can fish them out easily once you're done) and add the can of tomatoes.  At this point you need to put a lid on and turn the heat right down, it needs to cook for about an hour, undisturbed at a low heat.  You can give it a gentle stir every 15 minutes or so to make sure it doesn't burn.

When the hour is over, take the lid off and turn the heat up a little and continue cooking while stirring regularly now.  At this point season with salt and pepper and stir in the cumin.  What you want is for this mixture to reduce into a nice thick, chunky jam/chutney-like consistency.  Once it's done cooking, you can add a few drops of liquid sweetner to taste.

We used it as a sauce for our steak that evening, absolutely delicious, but I can think of loads of other ways to use it!

Have fun with it!!

Good night and God bless

Janie B