Tomatoes are the basis for a lot of popular foods today, but unfortunately for us poor type A people they are an avoid.

There are alternatives that can be used in things like pasta sauce and casserole.

For a pasta sauce you can make an acceptable substitute using sweet paprika with grated carrot and pumpkin. Fry an onion and when it has softened and turned golden add the sweet paprika and continue to fry for a minute. This releases all the flavour and aroma. Slow cooking your sauce will improve the depth of flavour and this has a noticeable effect if you make it 24 hours ahead of eating or even freeze a batch and re-heat it.

In a casserole you would again fry the sweet paprika early in the preparation with an onion and other spices then combine with an assortment of root vegetables and adding Miso to the stock will give a depth and richness to the flavour.

As a substitute for tomato puree a combination of Miso, onion and fried sweet paprika powder cooked together would work quite well. Either puree with a blender or in a mortar and pestle, thinned with a little extra virgin olive oil would make a terrific tomato free pizza sauce on a spelt pizza base.

Sue’s just read this and asked why we never have pizza like that. You can’t have cheese I said .

Duh !!!