Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Tuesday ... afternoon

Today is a busy day. My KitchenAid mixer arrived! But I've been too busy to even unpack it yet. I went out to the garden to turn the water on in the tomatoes. I have only been watering them about once a week, especially because we're having a rather mild summer here in Davis. But now I've lost track of the last time I watered them. They got about 3 hours of low-pressure watering today.

The ketchup situation is progressing. I kept two baskets of tomatoes out until they got pretty soft, then stuck them in the fridge last night (I was starting to worry about them going bad) - probably slightly more than 4.5 kilos overall. I washed them, then chopped them up and started feeding them into the machine. It was still tough to turn the handle, but what the heck, it worked! The output was a bit foamy. And then I started having problems because I think some of the solids eventually built up in the works and wouldn't let the liquid part of the tomato go through. In fact, I eventually just put the ketchup on the stove even though some of the liquid is sitting in the input funnel of the machine. I'm not sure what to do about that, especially since I might make a huge mess if I try to move the machine or take it apart. My current solution is to ignore the situation for the moment. I'll get back to it later.

So now it's on the stove ... for 4.5 kilos of tomatoes, I added .5 liters of vinegar, .4 kilos of sugar, 4 whole cloves, and a handful of salt. Loris is still getting back to me on the chili pepper question - I am against them (I don't tolerate those things). Now I just have to wait for it to boil 6-7 hours. And then can it. It's going to be hot in the kitchen today. More later, once I get my new toy out of its box (and run a BUNCH of errands).

2 comments:

CalCandide said...

4 whole cloves? As in the spice? Or cloves of garlic?

sunflowerchilde said...

Whole cloves, as in the spice.