Tomatoes in all their natural forms are favourable and healthy carbohydrate with the obvious exception of commercial tomato sauce that is often about one third sugar.
The ProZone book has a lot of tomato based recipes. When making sauce and cooking with tomatoes I strongly recommend using imported tomato pulp instead of New Zealand grown canned tomatoes for ease of use, taste and results. My reasons for this are that NZ canned tomatoes are sometimes very watery and they are not completely sun ripened before canning. This has a significant effect on taste and ease of use.
The products I recommend are in glass containers and are readily available in supermarkets. They are called “cooking sauce” and sometimes they may have a little added herbs or garlic but are about 99% pure mildly concentrated tomato. They can represent good value compared to cans because you are buying less water. Italian brands are frequently available and Australian Leggo’s brand is generally always available. Inexplicably the Italian brands are frequently less expensive than the Australian product.
Depending on brand the pure tomato products are about 3 and a half to 5 blocks of carbohydrate per whole bottle.
The products can be used as is or cooked with e.g. chilli, garlic, olives, and finely chopped onion, carrot and celery and fresh herbs or dried basil to make a delicious flavoured tomato sauce.
Contributed by Kevin Bateman