Don’t throw away that leftover red half-tomato.

Nothing much ever goes to waste in my kitchen. I had a large red tomato and I used half of it for a plain old-fashioned tomato sandwich.

I don’t like tomato skins so I had scorched it with boiling water, making the X on the bottom so as to let the skin just slip off. A couple of nice thick slices made a great sandwich.

So I made barbecue sauce with the leftovers. You can easily double or even quadruple this recipe.

Ingredients

• 2 T finely chopped white onion
• Pinch of dried thyme
• 1/2 medium red tomato, chopped
• 1 t chopped fresh parsley
• 1 t finely chopped fresh basil
• 2 T white Balsamic vinegar
• Minced crushed garlic clove
• I T best maple syrup
• Salt, fresh cracked pepper
• 1 T plum jam
• 1 T orange marmalade
• 1 fig (chopped or mashed), marinated in brandy
• 1/2 t mustard
• Grated orange and lemon rind

Directions

1. Sauté the onion — careful not to burn it; just translucent. Add pinch of dried thyme. Then add tomato, herbs, vinegar and garlic. Stir and then add the syrup. Adjust seasonings. Mash using fork tines.
2. When the mixture has cooked down and thickened, add 1T homemade plum jam, (or favourite store bought), 1 T orange marmalade and one marinated-in-brandy fig.
3. Stir in the mustard.
4. Mash and stir the finished mixture. Stir in the rind.
5. Cover the container with plastic wrap as well as its cover, in a storage jar in the coldest area of the fridge, for up to several weeks. Keep it airtight.
6. The flavour of the good brandied fig will enhance the overall wonderful taste. And the fragrance permeates the kitchen.
7. Use on barbecued butterfly centre-cut pork chops, barbecued lamb chops or barbecued fish. Top meat or fish with this sauce just minutes before serving, while still on the barbecue. Be careful not to burn it.
8. Serve immediately.

This sauce is also suitable for barbecued large portobello mushrooms. They taste like steak.

Remove the stem. Paint the mushrooms with just a little olive oil on both sides. Sprinkle with pepper on the inside side only. Salt after cooking is finished.

Barbecue for three to four minutes on each side on medium high heat. Spoon a little sauce on the stem side. Serve it whole or sliced in thick slices. Truly wonderful!

This sauce even enhances sautéed liver. As with other uses, paint on a little sauce only during last few minutes.  Since the sauce is sweet, it will become sticky and easily burn.

Try it on Rock Cornish hens, too.

Here’s a great way to prepare cherry tomatoes – yellow and red in balsamic and soya sauce.

First split the bigger ones in half. Use dark good balsamic vinegar (1:3) and your favourite oil cooked on top of the stove with a little brown sugar and a little soya sauce. Add a pinch
of good mustard, stirred in.

When it thickens just slightly and coats a spoon, it is ready to use. Fabulous on cherry tomatoes with baby spinach leaves. Enjoy! So yum…

Carolyne

The working title for Carolyne’s Gourmet Recipes cookbook is From Lady Ralston’s Kitchen: A Canadian Contessa Cooks. This kitchen-friendly doyenne has been honoured and referred to as the grande dame of executive real estate in her market area during her 35-year career. She taught gourmet cooking in the mid-70s and wrote a weekly newspaper cooking column, long before gourmet was popular as it is today. Her ebook, Gourmet Cooking – at Home with Carolyne is available here for $5.99 US. Email Carolyne. Scroll down to the comments at each recipe column. Carolyne often adds complimentary “From Lady Ralston’s Kitchen” additional recipes in the Recipes for Realtors Comments section at REM.