At Home: San Marzano tomato sauce

I can't seem to get it right. Every Spring our lovely neighbour, Helen, hands beautiful cherry and beef tomato seedlings over the garden fence. We stick them in a sunny spot, nourish them, prune them, and tend to them, but our attentions never bear fruit. These San Marzano beauties, however, given to me as inch-long seedlings in a cardboard box by a green-fingered work mate, were a little more forthcoming.

@TheModernPantry kindly suggested some ways to put them to use (tomato and plum galette, tomato sorbet, gazpacho), but on cutting one open and revealing a pale grainy texture I didn't think they'd hold their own. So I tried a safer option: Pim's aubergine in tomato sauce. No gourmand award for this simple dish, but if you've a glut of cooking tomatoes of suspect quality languishing in your garden, there couldn't be an easier way to make the best of them. Yum.