Pioneer Woman at Heart

                                        The sauce comes out of the center piece and into a pan (white part), and the "trash" comes out the left side and I put a pot there to catch it.  It's the seeds and peelings of the tomatoes.  Basically, anything sauce made, I do not have to de-seed or remove peels, as this hand cranked machine does it for me. However, I always assumed it was doing it's job well the first time. (second time running it thru) I have no idea why no one, who uses a sauce maker, ever told me this tidbit!   I always "assumed" that my sauce maker worked well enough to give me the "goods" when saucing anything.  Wrong!  Run your "trash" thru the sauce maker a second time to get the most of those tomatoes.  I am still using my old sauce maker, as the new one has not arrived yet, and boy did I get more doing it twice.  I found out about t...

  I finally found the other tomato worm, while I was tying the tomato plants up again.  By the way, the plants are as tall as me , and have gone way above their stakes.  I am a hair from being 6 feet tall, if that tells you anything.  We will be watching end of summer sales, for 6 foot metal (sturdy) tomato cages for next year.  I  don't know that they'll work, as our plants are fully loaded, and very heavy when the tomatoes are on.  I don't know what I was thinking.  I went out, thinking I'll just quick pick green beans and be back inside for inside work.  Ha!  Not only did it take an hour to pick beans, but I had more zucchini, and cucumbers to pick.  I had no yellow squash, but the plants are once again loaded with blossoms, and the bees are a buzzing out there. I sent more zucchini to work with my husband, and I will be taking any other extra to the library staff next.  I am still freezing some for us, but it is coming in d...

We have had foggy, cool mornings for several days now.  However, we will heat up again next week.  Literally into the 90's for a few days.  We were not expecting that. I had good intentions of going to the garden first thing yesterday (after two days of rain), but the weather was not good.  It was foggy, cloudy and misting.  Finally when the fog lifted and the sun came out, I was able to check the garden. I brought in some hot peppers that went to work with my husband (not enough to can anything with), and another 40 some pounds of tomatoes.   By evening I got, what felt like 2 minutes of crochet time.  I am learning a new crochet stitch that I came across the other day (winter scarf).  I'm using up stash I already have to keep costs down and prices lower for a craft show.  I'm sure my husband will be happy it's "stash" yarn, ha ha!

I woke up in time to see this beautiful sky.  I did however, sleep in, and did not get to see my husband before he went to work.  He is taking over a supervisor position for a few months.  Let's just say the coffee pot is pre-set at 4:30am now.  Unless I try and put up another table in the living room, I am plum out of room for ripe ones.  I'm trying my best to get things canned, but I can only do one sauce/tomato recipe in one day. We have surpassed 200 pounds of Amish paste this year.  There are more out there, and the plants are dying.  Sheesh, but so thankful for the stock up with all of them. The recipe I use for the Lemony -Tomato Basil soup is from this magazine.  Looks like a magazine, but thick like the ball regular canning book.  I think I bought it at TSC farm store.  I canned another batch of this soup. It is also the same magazine that has the BBQ sauce recipe that I can.  To me, it's the best one we've tried so far. I ...

  I've been busy with tomatoes, and more are turning red now.  It's been a strange season.  The squash didn't produce a lot, and is now ready to get yanked.  Same with the cucumbers and green beans. Some tomatoes are splitting open, and some rotting due to the weather we are having.  Not sure how much we will get this year. Took advantage of needing jalapenos in the recipe, and saved seeds for next year.

It's another canning day today.  The paste tomatoes are rolling in and I have 38# in my kitchen.   Looks like we get to enjoy leftovers again tonight.  I made a sheet pan chicken fajita dinner and it I am loving it.  Sheet pan dinners are quick and meat and veggies, and less dishes to wash.  Work is buying lunch for the employees, so I only had to pack breakfast for my husband. Breakfast was thrown together with what I had - zucchini, onion, garlic, eggs, tomatoes and fresh basil from the herb garden.

We've had a very happy garden moment!  I picked 17.5# of tomatoes on just one picking.  If you've been reading my blog regularly, you know we planted about 100 plants and got under 20# since they started producing.  I wanted to climb the roof and shout it to the world, I was that happy. How to preserve tomatoes for sauce making.  Rinse and dry tomatoes whole.  Freeze in freezer bags or freezer containers.  Don't forget to label so you know the exact weight.  Thaw and use for sauce making recipes.    By the way, the skin comes right off of these when they thaw.  It didn't help me with my sauce making (I toss them in a pot, and run through a sauce maker), but if you don't have a sauce maker I thought I would share. Dug this bad boy out for the first time this season. Such a happy day for me yesterday!!  Tomato sauce!!

We recently grilled burgers and we took advantage of that open jar of canned caramelized onions.  Mmm.  Goodness.  Grilled organic / non-gmo beef burgers, topped with swiss cheese, canned onions, and home canned ketchup.  I should have mixed some hot peppers and greens into the beef, but I was just so hungry, ha ha ha! (15 lbs.)

Every few days I have been making a crock pot of steel cut oats, so Hubby can take his breakfast to work (or we enjoy it after the gym, and before h e leaves for work ).     The frittatas, and other dishes fill up the remainder days.  I made a zucchini- tomato frittata recently.  The roadside produce stand still had some

Saturday was pretty productive.  I boiled and ice bathed the last 11# of tomatoes I picked on Friday.  Yes, there were more, even after I let the hens at 'em.  Grand total of to matoes has moved up to 511#! I got 8 1/2 pints of crushed tomatoes canned.  Not bad for the last bit of tomatoes.  Ripe ones anyway.  While the can ner boiled, I started washing down the k itchen cupboards.  The fall cleaning has started .

I faced another 8# of ripe tomatoes yesterday, and will be today.  In fact, I told Hubby dinner will be very late.  I'm on a mission to put up all of my ripe tomatoes.  Ha!   I took time, after the tomatoes were all boiled and ice bathed, and draining, to eat breakfast on the porch.  It was nice to get some Vitamin D.  Then it was back to the sink and stove.  By the way, that was leftover sweet potato/black bean frittata (Mmmm!)

I made one last visit to the tomatoes.  I promised myself to not even think about getting more harvested, and just pull the darn plants.  I put the last of the grape tomatoes into the dehydrator, and pulled some green tomatoes.  Even the green tomatoes are starting to look bad, so I'm ready to get them pulled.  I pulled one plant and stake today.  It's a measly start on 100-some plants, ha ha!  The grand total of our tomato harvest, as of yesterday, was 500.8#! I told the kids I'll not do that again.  They all laughed at me.

A few have asked for me to share the recipe I use for canning tomato paste.  Here you are:

Ketchup requires 10 pounds of tomatoes - 3 batches made.  More to make later I hope. I've been successful at getting the tomatoes cut and cooked down before the sun rises, but not through the sauce maker.  Early is best when canning with sauce anything.  This was a double batch of tomato paste (20 pounds).  That is one of my smaller sauce pans - 8 inches tall, and 10 inches in diameter.  That is what it looks like before it becomes.....

Easy Layered Dip 1 - 8 oz. cream cheese 2 cloves of garlic minced 1-2 Roma tomatoes (or your choice) chopped Green onions, snipped Mozzarella cheese, finely shredded Set cream cheese out to soften.  Once soft, cream it with the minced garlic.  Spread it onto a serving plate (I use a regular dinner plate).  Top it with chopped tomatoes, and green onions.  Add shredded cheese to cover, to your taste. Refrigerate for several hours for the garlic and cream cheese to infuse flavors.  Serve with crackers of your choice, and set the dip out for a few minutes to soften again (or it will be difficult to "dip" your crackers).

Every day the tomatoes are being brought in now.  I am canning daily, and exhausted (but have zero problems with falling asleep).  The sauce maker is in full swing. Ketchup takes 10 pounds of pa ste tomatoes.  One batch made so far.   Pizza sauce requires 25 pounds.  One batch made so far.  The table is covered with more tomatoes.  I am thrilled for such a good harvest, but my posts will be short this week, ha ha!  As of yes terday, we have brought in 120 pounds of tomatoes.  Some canned, some frozen, and some eaten.  There are more to can yet today, but dishes must be tackled first.  The "guts" from all the sauce making is being fed to my chickens .  The goats will eat a few bites, but they are still young.

This week has been super productive, and I got another batch of sweet pickle relish canned.  I actually froze beets (first time to get any in my freezer). I'm in the kitchen again today. You would not believe this.

(tomatoes heating for freezing tomato juice) (ketchup reducing) Yesterday while more ketchup was reducing on the stove, and in another pot I was heating tomatoes for tomato juice, I took my lunch to the porch.  It was kind of my "five minutes" to myself part of the day.   I picked more green and red bell peppers, and wandered around checking the tomatoes.  There are more green ones on the larger tomato plants yet.

I canned more pints of pizza sauce.  There was no voting on what to can, considering we had just made pizzas the night before.  I'm exhausted this morning.  I was sealing jars way past 7pm, and still had laundry that needed to come off the line.  On a Sunday no less.  After getting the laundry down. . .

Yesterday, after laundry was on the line, I decided to start with 20 lbs. of paste tomatoes, a few bay leaves and followed the instructions in Keeping the Harvest , by Nancy Chioffi and Gretchen Mead.