Homemade Meat Sauce from Fresh Tomatoes

Here is my recipe for Homemade Meat Sauce from Home Grown Garden Tomatoes:

You will need:

10-15 medium sized fresh tomatoes (jet stars are what I had grown) ripe
1 lb ground beef
1 can sliced mushrooms
1-2 cans of tomato paste
olive oil
minced garlic
onion flakes
salt
pepper
Italian seasoning (or basil, oregano, garlic mixture)
Large pot
strainer
paring knife


Start a large pot of water to boil and add several tomatoes to fill one layer in the pot with water nearly covering.  When tomatoes begin to peel or get soft remove tomatoes to a cold water bath.

Gather another large pot and add some olive oil, about 1/8 cup or so.

Peel each tomato, use a paring knife to remove the cores, and rinse out the seeds in each pod area.  Then take each tomato and hand crush them into a pot.  They don't need to be finely crushed just a quick squeeze in the hand should do.  You may use a strainer to strain off the juice from the seedy portions, but you will want to use that juice as well as the meaty portions, this just helps to get some of the extra seeds out.

Once all the tomatoes are crushed into the pot with the olive oil return to the stove over medium high heat.  Begin to stir as it cooks and add the tomato paste to thicken as needed, and add all seasonings, salt, pepper, Italian seasoning, extra basil if you like, garlic, onion flakes, mushrooms, and cooked and seasoned ground beef.  (Ground beef seasoned with onion flakes, garlic, Italian seasoning and the grease drained off).

Let the sauce thicken and cook until it's a consistency of a traditional pasta sauce.

ENJOY!!