Tomato Pasta Sauce

Tomato Pasta Sauce

Posted by Cris

We love our fresh tomatos all summer, but then they all come at once so we blanch them (quick 10 secs in boiling water), peel the skins and core them and freeze them in bulk.

And then hunting season comes and I start cooking. Only this year Jon didn't go up nort' so he helped!

Ingredients

Tomatoes

Zucchini (or squash)

Onions 

Garlic

Basil

Salt and Pepper

I would love to give you exact amounts and all so you could replicate this, but that's not how I cook.  I had 4 big gallon ziploc bags of tomatoes, 6 cups of zucchini (measured pre-frozen) and 1 onion and LOTS of garlic  (10-14 cloves) basil and salt and pepper are to taste. 

Here are the steps - defrost (it took a good 24 hours for those tomatoes)

Chop and Saute the onion and garlic.

Enjoy the smells!   Put it all in the slow cooker to marinate. 

 Add the garlic and onions to the slow cooker. 

 Add BASIL (I love basil! check out pesto here!) I rescued this tiny plant from the garden and its now on my kitchen windowsill for fresh basil all year long.  I also have a lot of dried basil.  Both work great.  

  

 Zucchini is not the most common ingredient in tomato sauce, but we always have a lot of excess that I shred and freeze in 2 cup portions.  *Why 2 cups? It's the right amount for zucchini muffins. The reason I add it is to thicken the sauce and add some extra vitamins and vegetables - what the kids (and hubs) don't know won't hurt them.   

So when it thaws there is a LOT of excess water. Since we are trying to thicken the sauce that needs drained off.  I put all of it into a cheese cloth.   

Wrap it up and strain.  It's really easy.

Okay - so that goes into the slow cooker too.  Mix it all up. Let it cook on low for 6-8 hours or high for 4 hours.  Taste it throughout and add salt and pepper.  If it tastes bitter, you can add carrots (shredded or cooked/mashed) to sweeten things up.  I had to do this last year, but this year it was fabulous without. 

When all done cooking its still very chunky.  We like our tomato sauce well pureed - so we put it in a blender and puree away. 

You can certainly eat this right away or store in the fridge for a few weeks.  

We went ahead and added to jars and started the canning process! 

You need to leave a 1/2 inch of head space. 

Its a water bath process - which I think is easier than pressure cooking, but whatever. 

They have to stay in there for 35 minutes.

And when it was all done we have 12 jars of beautiful homemade Tomato Pasta Sauce. 

PS - Also amazing as PIZZA sauce. 

Freezing Greens

Posted by Cris

I love salads! 

And when we started our garden lettuce and spinach were must haves.  I had never tried kale or swiss chard so I planted it too, thinking it must be delicious too.  Only its not. It's an acquired taste.  It's MUCH more bitter and I prefer it raw, but again it's the end of the season and there is still so much.  So we need to freeze it. Only I do NOT like cooked greens.  Sorry, I'm clearly not southern.  (I don't like fried foods or cooked greens.)  

However, I can tolerate cooked greens in soups. So that is my plan to use them up.

First you need to cut the stem out of the swiss chard and the kale.  Our kale was super small this year, last year it was huge.  No idea why (this year we had lots more rain).

Blanching comes next.  Blanching is just boiling the greens for 2 minutes.

 

 Then straining them and dunking them into an ice bath.

Next, I threw them in the salad spinner to dry them off and then set them on a cheese cloth towel to remove all the excess water. 

I folded the towel up a few times and pressed to dry them as best I could. 

Onto the food saver, Jon doesn't kid when he says it's one of our most used appliances. Sorry, It kind of looks like we are packaging drugs, since I wanted small, soup portions of greens. 

If you don't grow your own, these greens are cheap and readily available at farmer's markets or grocery stores and can be easily processed the same way.  However, after cooking, they shrink WAY down. Buy a lot if you like them that much.  After all was said and done a 4 qt. bowl full of raw greens gave us about 5 cups of cooked greens. 

If you have any good soup recipes that incorporate a little greens, please share!  I'd love to have em.