Over the past few months, Pete and I have turned in excess of 100kg of roma tomatoes into homemade passata. It hasn’t been a difficult task, but putting the roasted toms through the food mill was always a little laborious.
A few weeks ago, Pete made the management decision to buy a new tomato juicer. It cost $49 and is mostly made from plastic (apart from the sieve), which means that we have to let the sauce cool before processing. Notwithstanding the fact that it leaks a little from the handle, it works brilliantly. There is a clever corkscrew spiral in the middle, which forces the mix through a sieve, producing sauce down the chute and pulp out the end.
The handle is almost effortless to turn, and it’s much faster than the old food mill. We’ve recently been using it to make Chinese plum sauce from our President plums, which is what you can see in the photos. We put the extruded pulp through a couple of times, to extract the last bit of goodness from it.
. . . . .
My friend Ozoz, the Kitchen Butterfly, surprised me yesterday with a package in the mail, all the way from the Netherlands!
One of the many items she sent included this poffertjes pan, for making traditional Dutch pancakes. We had to try it out straight away – the pan turned out perfectly round mini pancakes. Oz even sent me the little wooden fork needed to flip them over…
Poffertjes are traditionally served with icing sugar and butter. Big Boy had a huge plateful for dessert, drizzled with maple syrup. He’d been studying for an exam, so was extremely grateful for the carb hit. Thank you, Ozoz!
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 
Very cool looking tomato machine…appropriate colour too!
I am intruigued by the look and sound of the home made Chinese plum sauce. Wow. I look forward to reading the recipe here soon (hint!).
You will have to make some of those filled pancake things in your fancy new pan! We love buying plates of those little poffertjes at the markets…something about the cute little size makes them irrestible.
yes, please. i have a plum sauce in the works too, hopefully to glaze duck breasts this weekend, if hubs will make it home. we’ll have to compare notes!
that tomato thingy brings up memories. we used to have a similar one when i was a kid, and each fall we made ketchup and tomato juice – a pulpy, thick juice which makes the best bloody mary ever. ugh, how i miss home!
ps – if by chance you left a comment on the dark chocolate cake, i did not reject it!! the dashboard showed 8 comments, but refused to display it. it still shows they’re there, but i can’t see them to hit ‘publish’. i’ve disabled comment moderation so hopefully i won’t have any more hicccups. i regret not using wordpress.
Ahh lovely! Will you do a Chinese Plum Sauce story? :) What a brilliant present-those pans are heavy too! I adore poffertjes, they’re so nice and fluffy and there’s a lot to be said about bite sized food :)
A second batch of plum sauce on the boil now, and I’m taking photos! :)
The poffertjes pan is actually very light – made of teflon – and the pancakes just slid out. The cast iron ones look great, but I’m not convinced that they wouldn’t stick!
Lorraine, the problem with bite sized food is that it never changes how many bites I actually take.. :)
*Mouth drooling*
Wow, Mrs C…Those mini pancake poffertjes look sooo irresistibly delicious.
Oh man, I wish I had your kitchen. It looks so much fun.
You know you’re welcome anytime, Kris! I thought of you yesterday when I was pouring caramelised white chocolate over the top of a cookie bar.. :)