Sausage Rolls and Tomato Sauce

What to do with a kilo of minced beef that you forgot you defrosted? Make sausage rolls!
First, make the sausage mince.

SAUSAGE MINCE
Use 500g mince and add a handful of fresh herbs or a good sprinkling of dried. For the first batch I used sage, parsley and thyme. The second batch I made with dried Italian herbs.

Tear up around 4 slices stale bread or use about 1/2 cup dried breadcrumbs and add to the bowl. To season, use a generous amount of salt and pepper or try my All Purpose Seasoning. Add one egg and 1/2 MC of water. Add garlic and onion if desired. Mix together on speed 3 - 4 until it looks like sausage mince. I actually taste it at this stage. Just touch it to my tongue to check the seasoning.

When putting together sausage rolls, take a wad of the sausage mince and roll out on the bench like a sausage to the length of the puff pastry sheets. I find this makes the sausage rolls more even in size.
Score the rolls of filled puff pastry with a knife. I generally make four from one roll. These can be frozen at this stage.

Place on an oven tray and brush with egg. Bake in a pre heated (220C) oven for about 10 minutes. Reduce to 200 and continue cooking for a further 10 minutes or until golden brown and puffed. Cool on a rack. Once cooled, these can be frozen.
To make these gluten free, use rice crumbs or rice flakes instead of bread.

This is such an easy recipe there's no excuse not to make your own tomato sauce. So much nicer than the bought stuff!
I found this recipe at Mumdeep. She calls it Aussie Style Thermomix Tomato Sauce. I had more than 500g of tomatoes, so I doubled the recipe. When doubling recipes in the Thermomix, I find it's best to add half the time again, rather than doubling the cooking time.

Here's the recipe with my tweaks

TOMATO SAUCE
1kg very ripe tomatoes
2 large cooking apples
180g Apple Cider Vinegar
180g rapadura sugar (or brown sugar)
2 - 4 Tbsp tomato paste
4 tsp salt (can use less)
2 tsp pepper
1 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves

Cut tomatoes and apples (don't peel) into quarters and place into Thermomix bowl. Add vinegar. Cook for 45 minutes/100/speed 2. This helps keep the colour of the sauce lovely and red.
Let cool for 1/2 an hour or so and then blend on speed 8 to 9 until smooth.
Add sugar, tomato paste and spices and cook a further 45 minutes/100/speed 2. Place basket on top to prevent it spitting out all over your bench and walls!
Adjust seasoning to your liking.
Place into warmed bottles and cap. Tip upside down for ten minutes. Turn up the right way and you'll find the bottles will seal.
If I have any left over bought tomato sauce, I add that to the bowl rather than waste it. In fact, if you're introducing a fussy family member to home made tomato sauce, this is a good way to do it. Just reduce the amount of bought sauce you use each time you make it.

Enjoy!

Megan