Spaghetti Sauce

 I have never actually made spaghetti sauce at home but we still had a lot of tomatoes and I know the basic idea so ....I winged it. 

I used my old Presto strainer. It is so easy to use. It takes out the seeds and skins and just leaves you with the sauce. I added some onion, a few small banana peppers, basil, and oregano from the garden, salt and pepper, and some minced garlic. 

Then I just simmered it for a couple hours until it looked thick enough. It maybe isn't as thick as store bought but we tried it out and it was pretty good. It only made enough for maybe 3 meals but that is three jars of spaghetti sauce that I don't have to buy and it used up most of the tomatoes. 

Tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes...

 So far my 9 plants have produced 62 tomatoes and the plants are still loaded with green ones. They don't all ripen at once and a lot of them are still on the windowsill getting their last bit of red. I am picking them a little early this year because there is a caterpillar (or worm of some kind) making holes in the red ones. 
Now we have used several in salads (along with the garden lettuce and cucumbers) and on hamburgers but that still leaves a lot and I wait until I have a decent bunch and cook them up for Phil. We usually buy canned tomatoes because Phil likes them in his spaghetti and mac n' cheese and a few other things. Of course, the fresh ones are just so much better.

So you start by putting them in boiling water for a few minutes and getting the peel off. Peeling tomatoes such a messy job! 

Then I added a little salt and cooked them in the pan until they were nice and juicy but still had some form. Our tomatoes this year are mostly Roma with a few Homestead. The Roma's worked really well and I think we will stick with those from now on. 

That's pretty much all there is to it. Let them cool a bit, put them in containers and pop them in the fridge. 

Yes, just three containers this time but that is 3 cans of tomatoes that I didn't have to buy at the store and those tomatoes sitting on my island didn't go to waste. I imagine by this weekend I will have so many tomatoes that I will have to do it all again. I love putting up things from the garden even if it is just three containers of tomatoes.

Remember make the most of what you have. 

What's Growing?

 So you would think that we wouldn't be able to grow as much here in town as we did out in the country but that hasn't turned out to be the case. We have a nice sized corner lot with yard area on all sides of the house. The raised beds are in the back yard and so far there are just the three. The two big ones that we made out of the railroad beams that were here and then a small metal one. Our backyard, although surrounded by trees gets a LOT more sun than our yard in the country did and it is more of a sandy soil so no red clay to deal with. Things just grow so much better. Last year there was summer squash, tomatoes and peppers and this year there are tons of tomatoes, cucumbers,

a few cabbage, lettuce and hopefully there will be squash (I got is started later because I had a rather major surgery to deal with this year). There are also two metal tub planters that I am keeping herbs in. he oregano has gone to flower but the sage is looking great 

 

and there is some lemon grass and the huge rosemary has taken over one corner of one of the raised beds. Basil came up on its own from where it had seeded last year. 

My metal raised bed started out with just two strawberry plants in it but is quickly growing runner after runner and I expect the bed will be full in no time. Now I just have to figure out how to keep the strawberries from the ants. There is also a little raspberry plant in there that my daughter gave me an I didn't know what to do with so it is in there for now. 

My daughter gave me a pomegranate bush and I myself bought two small blueberry bushes. 

I also just bought another Meyer lemon. I read my post from before about buying one but I have no idea what happened to that one. I do know that I never got any lemons from it that I can remember. Hopefully this one will do better. 

So I think that is most of what is growing food-wise here. I have lots of flowers and houseplants has turned into a little business but I'll leave that for another post. Here are pictures of my tomatoes. I have two windowsills full already. There are just 9 plants out there, mostly Roma but a few Homestead.