Happy Friday everyone! As short as the week has been I am still really glad to see it end! It’s been pretty gloomy yet busy around this little corner of my world!
I really am starting to like this whole growing your own vegetables and using them all year around thing. One thing I DIDN’T want to plant was tomatoes. See I’m not a huge fan of raw tomatoes and Ryan isn’t either. But we do like our fresh tomato sauces and I mix it into a lot of recipes to force a little veggies down Ry’s throat!
I decided to try my hand at growing my own Roma tomatoes this year in a few clay pots on my porch. For the most part they grew great and I had myself a little supply of tomatoes to try to can.
At the end of August I picked all my rip tomatoes to begin the process of cooking them.
Yup! That’s it…that’s all the tomatoes I got. Hardly enough to bother canning! So, I decided instead I was going to prepare them for supper and have FRESH tomato sauce! I pretty much thought I was a genius at that point……it didn’t last long….
The first thing I did was start boiling a pot of water on the stove. I then dropped my tomatoes into this boiling water for 1-2 minutes.
After sitting in the hot tub for a bit I dropped the tomatoes into very cold water. (You are suppose to put it in an ice bath but I didn’t have any ice).
Once the tomatoes have cooled down from the cold water the skin slides right off!! It’s like magic! So simple!
Now, time for the dirty part….Next I had to cut my tomatoes in half
and then squeeze the guts out of them…literally! Squeezed all the seeds and pulp out of those suckers!
Finally, they were ready for the pot! I stuck em’ in another pot and stuck it on the stove on medium heat. I didn’t have to worry about adding water because apparently the tomatoes have enough water in them.
I placed the lid on the pot and let it simmer for about 1 hour. Magically, the tomatoes broke down and were starting to look like sauce!
I put another pot on the stove to make some noodles because my special sauce was almost done!
Now, the recipe said to add 1/4 cup of sugar….so I did…..
Uh oh….I should of looked more closely...that’s 1/4 TEASPOON of sugar. I thought I would throw some spices in this very sweet sauce and you wouldn’t notice…WRONG! Bleh. It was awful! And now I had cooked noodles with no sauce. So, I quickly added some cheez whiz to these noodles before Ryan got home and VOILA “supper”. ha ha
After growing those tomato plants for months and spending over an hour cooking them it was all ruined because I didn’t double check the recipe….woops. Not quite the genius I thought I was…ha ha! Better luck next year!
Happy Friday!
xo
Oh no! That's disappointing!!!
ReplyDeleteA few years ago I had alot of tomatoes so I canned a whoel boat load of diced tomatoes because we go through a lot of them at our house in chilis and sauces. When I started to dive into them, they had all spoiled because the method for canning that was suggested to me, wasn't the greatest way to avoid botulism. I haven't canned anything since.
ReplyDeleteThat really sucks...lol. I made my first homemade tomato sauce around that time too - but just froze it to make spaghetti sauce or chili with, and I haven't tried it yet. So I'm not sure yet if mine really turned out, but since Mom was coaching me, I think I'm safe. LOL
ReplyDeleteoh it happens to the best of us! I tried making gnocchi one night and came up with potato mush :)
ReplyDeletelove the expression on your face! I had an amazing garden in Germany becuse they put manure on it. Hope that healthy, just thought of that now (30 years too late!)I leave the guts in because I love the seeds! Wierd, but whatever! My kids love mixing cheez whiz with a can of tomato soup and mixing it into a pot of noodles. The call it Uncle Rogadi's famous cheezie monies after my cousin Roger. Yummy.
ReplyDelete