I made pasta sauce (Finny's pasta sauce, as a matter of fact--thanks, Finn!). The discouraging thing about making sauce from tomatoes is that you start out with millions of tomatoes (actually about 20 pounds in this case) and end up with not much sauce. I got five pints out of that 20 pounds. Here, look. 
Not impressive
That colander is not 2o pounds of tomatoes. Two and a half of those colanders is 20 pounds. And that left me with five pints of sauce. How is that possible?
But I should be happy it takes so many tomatoes to make sauce, because it's not like there's a shortage of tomatoes. God no. After using all those tomatoes, and then going out to the garden to harvest the tomatoes for that day, I ended the day with this many tomatoes:
I think they breed in the dish pan at night.
Anybody familiar with Sisyphus? Yeah, that's me--pushing a big damn tomato uphill all day, only to have it roll down on top of me right before I get to the top, covering me in tomato slime and acidic juices.
Or something. The tomatoes may be scrambling my brain.
Ahh, but just think of all the tasty homegrown tomatoes you'll be eating all winter, while I'll be sitting here eating tinned tomatoes...still.
ReplyDeletemine are still green, dammit!
ReplyDeleteooo, sauce. That will make total sense in about a couple of weeks, when they FINALLY turn red.
sigh.
Enjoy the calm before the storm, Shelli. If your tomatoes are anything like my tomatoes (do you have 25 plants? which is another way of asking, "Are you as insane as I am?") you will be heartily sick of those longed-for tomatoes soon enough.
ReplyDeleteI sent Miriam over to our family friends' house to pick some tomatoes and basil while they're away (and I was running). They grow the most delicious tomatoes and basil I've ever tasted. Although their tomatoes are very deformed looking; yours look perfectly round. What's up with that?
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteSara--Probably a different variety of tomato. Last year, we grew an heirloom variety that was all twisted and cracked. This year, the ones you see are a hybrid variety we got free from the seed company with our order (Raad Red--prolific, but not particularly flavorful) and Romas. Hybrids tend to be more uniform, though generally not as tasty. Although, the Moonglows (the orange ones) are an heirloom, as is the Stupice variety the MiL ordered, and they seem perfectly symmetrical. So maybe I don't know what I'm talking about. Yeah, that's probably it.
ReplyDeleteYeah so, I'm just reading through all your posts one by one and leaving annoying comments? So what? At least I'm not The Pressure Canner.
ReplyDeleteBubba will be so jealous that this sauce is getting canned in another household.
I don't have enough tomatoes (or patience) to make and can this sauce this year. Next year I will double my plants and see if I can get even more.
Not 24 plants, but still.