Home Made Pasta Sauce

So this is the first time I’ve made pasta sauce, but with 20 pounds of tomatoes in my freezer from last fall its time they got sauced.  As mentioned before I’m not one for instructions…. so I got out 2 bags of frozen tomatoes (theses are the large ones each bag holds about 4 lbs).  Now I removed the skins from my tomatoes, which is really easy seeing that they are frozen, all you have to do is let them sit in warm water for about a minute cut your top off and the tomato will pop right out.  I had to let my tomatoes thaw a bit, my pour food processer couldn’t keep up with them frozen solid.  So when they were a little less frozen I sent them for a whirl, I made it pretty smooth the kids don’t like there food chunky. I also snuck in 2 cups of zucchini, some onion, a couple cloves of garlic, and a couple good sized carrots.  What they don’t know wont hurt them :)  Now into the pot it goes! add what ever spices you like to taste, I added thyme, oregano, rosemary, basil, pepper, and a little bit of red pepper flakes for a little kick, I also added a little brown sugar to sweeten it up a bit.  I let it simmer on medium/low for almost 2 hours, this is how long it took for all the naturally occurring water in the tomatoes to evaporate off.  Don't forget to stir often you really don’t want to burn it.  I left my sauce quite acidic just for the sake that I am canning it, when I go to use it I will add more sugar.  So when I was happy with it I packed it in my clean hot jars, leaving 1/2 an inch head space,(don’t forget to remove the air bubbles and clean the tops of the jars) put the lids on and returned the jars to the boiling water in my canning pot.  They need to boil for 35 – 40 minutes. For this batch I managed to fill 5 - 500mL  jars.  Well the jars are bubbling away do up you labels, don’t forget to add the date it was made, or it may turn into one of the mystery jars in the back of the cupboard. 
Now when it comes to canning there are a few rules you must follow from the recipe the amount of acid and the length of time to process in the water bath. (For the amount of tomatoes I used I added a 1/4 cup of lemon juice) If you’re new to canning I would would recommend following a recipe / canning instructions.  There are tons of good books out there, and you can borrow most of them from the library for free :) I own the  Blue Ribbon Preserves by Linda Amendt. And Google, I love Google
  
 

Honey-Do list update

Well not every thing got done that was on the list over the weekend, it wound up being really nice and to hot to do to much around the house.  But the garden is about half planted, the lawn is mowed, and the pool is fully operational and was actually used (the water is only 15 degrees C bburrr).  The family had there priority on the pool so it was the only thing that got done in its entirety.  So I keep plugging away at the garden and it should be done by the end of the week, which is good for me, I usually don’t have it done in May. Today I got my white pumpkin seeds and as a bonus I found some  seeds for the jade pumpkins(they’re a blue/green colour), and the tomatoes and peppers to pant too. Now I have to work though all the tomatoes, zucchini, and raspberries in my freezer, so I can make room for all of this years garden vegg.  I’m working on a batch of spaghetti sauce right now I've never made   it so we’ll see how it goes.

My garden as it sits right now

Pool Before (yuck!)

Pool After (with it’s shiny new cover)

The Honey-do List

Today I decided to post something a little different. I’m taking a little break from sewing this week to work on the household honey-do list.  I have  bunch of little projects to do around my house that have been sitting around for a long time (years in some cases).  There is a cupboard to go up in the bathroom, and I would like to paint my towel rack that the previous finish is coming off of.  And this is garden weekend here, I have my potatoes to go in the garden, and we are going to plant the pumpkin patch and get some of the other vegg in. 
And there is the pool (I use the term loosely 10 ft round & 2ft deep) to be cleaned (yuck), set up and ready to go …  with the temps getting up there its time to  get R done.
So I’ve spent most of my week in preparation for getting some stuff done around the house, like getting gas for the lawn mower, getting the garden supplies, and all the hardware and paint for some of the bigger projects.
I will post some before and after pictures of some of the projects  as I go.
I’ve done some little things like knitting up some washcloths, lot of baking before it gets to warm this week, but nothing to exciting.