Using many tomatoes that we grew in our garden, and adding some we bought at the local farm stand, my sister and I gathered together what we needed to make tomato sauce to freeze for the coming winter. We had fresh herbs from our gardens, garlic and peppers we grew ourselves, and some zucchini we threw in, too.
It took an hour or so of cutting and chopping to fill up two 18 quart cookers. We let it all simmer while we went to the Windsor Fair. Then we stirred them up and let them cook more while we went for a swim. After things were mushy we pureed it all then poured the sauce back into the cookers. Next we added herbs, salt, pepper and other things. We let the sauce cook for hours while we prepared and ate lobster dinner. More stirring, more cooking while we cleaned up. Finally at bed time the sauce was thick and fragrant and delicious. We let it cool over night and this morning tucked 23 quart bags of the flavor of summer into the freezer. The memories we made will be stored somewhere else.
If you want to make this yourself, the recipe follows:
We used 18 quart cookers made by
Oster/Sunbeam. They are under $30 at places like Target.
This is 1/2 recipe, which will fill 1 cooker.
1/2 bushel tomatoes, cored, not peeled, cut in half if large
2 hot peppers
2 sweet peppers
6 onions
1 head garlic
1/2 c. olive oil
Chunk up vegetables and put all ingredients into the cooker. Cook hot, (400) for several hours, stirring occasionally, until soft. Cool enough so you can handle, then put into food processor or blender in batches until smooth. Put sauce back into the cooker and add:
1/2 c. olive oil
1/8 c. oregano
basil to taste
1/2 c. sugar
4
sm. cans tomato paste
1/4 c salt
1/8 c pepper
(you an add more seasonings to taste)
Cool, ladle into freezer bags. Enjoy!
Using many tomatoes that we grew in our garden, and adding some we bought at the local farm stand, my sister and I gathered together what we needed to make tomato sauce to freeze for the coming winter. We had fresh herbs from our gardens, garlic and peppers we grew ourselves, and some zucchini we threw in, too.
It took an hour or so of cutting and chopping to fill up two 18 quart cookers. We let it all simmer while we went to the Windsor Fair. Then we stirred them up and let them cook more while we went for a swim. After things were mushy we pureed it all then poured the sauce back into the cookers. Next we added herbs, salt, pepper and other things. We let the sauce cook for hours while we prepared and ate lobster dinner. More stirring, more cooking while we cleaned up. Finally at bed time the sauce was thick and fragrant and delicious. We let it cool over night and this morning tucked 23 quart bags of the flavor of summer into the freezer. The memories we made will be stored somewhere else.
Last fall I bought seed garlic. I planted it in autumns cold dark earth and piled the mulch on. I had always thought growing this savory bulb would be a treat. In the spring green shoots appeared and grew hip high. In late summer the foliage withered and I dug deep to pull up fat, fragrant bulbs. I dusted the dirt off and laid them out to dry. I've been cooking with them for the last few weeks, and the flavor is wonderful. This fall, I plan to plant MORE garlic!
At 12:30 AM on 9/1, Flirt, my sweet toy poodle, pushed one very large puppy into the world.
