Tomato sauce

I didn't realize that I have never really described how to make tomato sauce. Here's are some basic instructions, although no pictures (sorry). Keep in mind, this is a very plain tomato sauce - the idea is that you add whatever else you want (i.e. onions, mushrooms, etc.) when you actually use the sauce.

Ingredients:

10 kg tomatoes
A few handfuls of basil
Some salt
Lemon juice optional

1. Chop up the tomatoes and toss them in a big pot (or two if necessary). Put this on the stove. My husband's family recommends squeezing them to get some of the excess liquid out (to have a saucier sauce). I use roma tomatoes only, so far, which don't really have excess liquid at this stage, so I never do this.

2. Add some salt (a small handful or so), turn the heat to medium, and cook for 30-40 minutes. Do not cover - you want some of the liquid to boil off.

3. Straing the sauce to lose some of the water. I use a T-shirt in a colander and strain in batches. Don't use a T-shirt that you plan on wearing ever again. I used to do a double-layer, now I just use one layer of T-shirt. I also try to pour off any really watery stuff that doesn't strain out.

4. Pass the tomatoes through a tomato press or sauce machine, such as this one, to remove the skin and seeds. At this ponit, if your sauce is really watery still, you can cook it down some more if you want. I never do (maybe I should, though).

5. Chop up the basil and stir it in. You can do this earlier, but I find that I lose a lot of it in the the sauce machine.

6. Process in a water-bath canner. Add lemon juice if you want - the USDA is now saying that lemon juice should be added to tomato sauce before canning ina hot-water-bath canner (google it for more info and for precise amounts to add).

NOTE: Don't try canning without researching about it first. While you can cut corners here and there, and botulism poisoning is extremely rare, it's still better to be safe than sorry. If you don't want to take the risk, you can probably freeze the sauce.

Heirlooms

Watermelon beefsteak

Local dinner

First course: Roasted butternut squash and garlic soup

- Homegrown butternut squash
- Homegrown garlic
- Onions from the farmer's market in Sacramento
- Local olive oil (from Sacramento)
- Knorr vegetable broth from?

Second course: Roasted pepper and roasted beet salad

- Homegrown bell peppers
- Homegrown beets
- Homegrown shallots
- Local olive oil
- Balsamic vinegar (not local)
- Salt (in bulk from the Davis co-op)

Bread from the Village Bakery
Butter made from local cream (Strauss family creamery)


NOTE: I should start making my own veggie broth; and the same company that makes the olive oil also makes balsamic vinegar. So I do have room to improve.

multi-tasking

Right now I'm blending some roasted butternut squash and garlic soup, making vanilla ice cream, about to make some butter, and after that I'll peel some roasted beets. And this is an easy night. I think my life has gotten a little bit too complicated.

There still laundry hanging on the line from two days ago that i haven't had time to take down.

In fact, while I type, I'm also trying to whisk the egg yolks for the ice cream.

And I only have time to do all this because I skipped going to the garden today.

Speaking of the garden, I'm hoping to chat about what's going on, and about more of my plans for next year while I'm at it. Next post, I hope. But just to give an idea, I have to preserve some green beans, peppers, zucchini, and tomatoes pretty soon. And I have eggplant to prepare too.

Returning from Italy

Coming back to my garden after two weeks away is a bit of a nightmare. Some of our friends in Davis were extremely thoughtful to water our garden for the time we were gone, and my sister stopped by in the middle to water the tomatoes, pick green beans, and generally set things in order as much as possible in an hour or two. Going to the garden at least every other day really hid from me the amazing changes that go on every day, but which are so small that I don't even notice them.

Primarily, despite my warnings to my friends to not touch my tomatoes, apparently they didn't know they also weren't supposed to water them. So for two weeks, they got way more water than I ever intended, and the resulting growth is incredible. I have vines falling all over the place, and have already spent a lot of time trying to get them back under control. I don't have all that many tomatoes yet, for this time of year. We've had a few heirlooms, and I have a basket of romas, and that's about it so far. Hopefully in another week or two I'll be able to start canning. Since we have so many jars of sauce from last year still, I'll probably make more tomato juice and ketchup this year instead. Yum!

We have had three beautiful melons - two were extremely ripe when we returned from Italy, and one isn't ready yet. We've already eaten one and a half of them, they're super-sweet and delicious. I don't know if I'll plant them again, though. For the amount of space they take up, I don't know if it's worth it.

We had tons of green beans. Unfortunately, the plants seem to be drying out quite a bit. We'll see what happens. I'm having a hard time with the weeds, they inter-grow with the bean plants and it's really hard to pull them. The beans are also getting huge and falling over - I may try staking them to keep them off the paths.

We also have lots of carrots and beets. The latest batch of carrots look great, much better than the older ones. It's about time to start planting new ones for fall. We're just about out of beets, I'm not sure if I'll try to grow them in the fall or wait again until early next spring.

Another thing that is doing great are the shallots. I've essentially stopped watering them, but some of them are still in the ground. I'll probably pull them all out today and store them with the garlic in our carport. They're delicious, and I think well worth growing.

The peppers are also doing amazingly well, but are suffering a lot from the weeds as well. I plan to do some major weeding after work today, and if I don't finish, I'll have to get to it on Sunday. We eaten a few peppers raw and in salads - none to roast yet. The yellow ones are so light green that it's hard to tell if/when they're ripening.

Basil and parsley is all doing well, really getting big. Both zucchini plants are huge and producing well, and the lima beans grew amazingly fast. It's hard to believe they're the same plants I left 2.5 weeks ago. The cucumber, sadly, isn't looking so great, but it's not a big loss if we lose it. And the eggplants are starting to produce - woohoo!

And that's my not-so-quick update! I'm starting to keep a written garden journal, so that I can post more stories, meals, and essays here instead, and not write out updates and lists and pretend to be interesting.

First five days in Italy

I've been in Italy for almost a week - we arrived Sunday afternoon, and it's now Friday afternoon. Time really flies.

We've eaten some really fantastic meals. I've already mentioned the porcini mushrooms, which we're really lucky to have a chance to eat fresh. It seems that they practically don't exist in the US. At least in Davis, we don't have the climate for them.

We had some of Loris' grandmother Agostina's vegetable soup last night. It was delicious, with onions, carrots, potatoes, green beans, zucchini, and I'm not sure what else. Before I left for Italy, I chopped up some zucchini, green beans, and carrots from the garden and put them in bags in the freezer, to make soup when we get back. I can't wait to get a dedicated freezer to store some of this stuff. We also had fresh mozzarella and stracchino, and a slice or two of pizza.

Speaking of pizza, that's what we're having tonight, at the Nebbius, the bar/hotel/pizzeria at the bottom of the square. We had a seafood lunch at the house in Aisone yesterday - pasta with clam sauce, grilled trout caught by Teresio, salad from the garden, and gelato.

And speaking of cheese, we had some fantastic cheese at Centro Fondo with our pasta and porcini sauce on Monday, and Teresio brought some on our hike today. I hope we remember to get some to take back to the US with us. And oh, the hike ... we climbed the Ischiator, the third highest mountain in the region. We went up in around 3 hours and 15 minutes. Here are some pictures.

Tomatoes

Here are just a few pics of my tomatoes, which I took the morning that we left for Italy, July 12.

Compare this picture with the tomatoes just after I planted them