Effin Awesome Recipes: Roasted Tomato and Garlic Sauce

As previously posted, we have on overabundance of tomatoes this year.  A good mix of hot days, lots of sunshine, and just enough rain to simulate a Mediterranean summer bode well for our southern European varieties of the fruit-vegetable - or is it a vegetable-fruit?  Or a vruit?  Or a fegetable?

Anyway, being one of the best and most popular vruits for home gardeners to grow and maintain, tomatoes are also one of the best for preserving. 

On two separate occasions this week we canned (jarred) plain tomato sauce (we also did a few with some homegrown dried herbs).  We first quartered the tomatoes and put them into a stock pot.  As we added the quartered tomatoes to the stock pot we smashed them with a potato masher.  Once the entire mixture was smashed pretty well we ran them through a food mill to remove the seeds and skins, then proceeded to cook the sauce for another 20 minutes before proceeding with the canning process.  We added lemon/lime juice and salt to the jars, and then processed them in a boiling water canner for approximately 35 minutes.  1 tablespoon of lemon/lime juice and 1 half-teaspoon of salt for pints, 2 tablespoons of lemon/lime juice and 1 teaspoon of salt for quarts.  Also, if you're adding dried herbs add them to the jar prior to adding the sauce.  We did a tablespoon of Rocky Mountian Oregeno in some, and a tablespoon of Lemon Basil to others.

For our third batch of sauce we did a roasted tomato and garlic sauce.  We first roasted the quartered tomatoes with a drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkle of salt.

They were roasted at 425 degrees for approximately 35 minutes.

Roasting the tomatoes releases flavors not found when simply cooking them down in their own sauce.  You dudes really need to download the Smellzilla browser so that you can enjoy the fragrence of these beauties

We then put the roasted tomatoes into a roaster pan, and cooked them on high heat for about 30 minutes.

Once the tomatoes got to the consistency show above, we threw some garlic (2 full heads of average sized garlic) into the oven and roasted it with some olive oil for approximately 20 minutes.  While the garlic was roasting we ran the tomato mixture through a food mill to remove the seeds and skins.

Compost that.

We returned the cleaned tomato sauce to the roaster along with the roasted and smashed garlic and cooked it for approximately 1 hour until it thickened slightly.

We added lemon juice and salt following the amounts listed above, then added the jars to a boiling water canner for 35 minutes.  Doneso.  Yumso.  Fresh tomato sauce all winter long for pennies per jar. 

Can't beat it.

So to recap the week in food preservation:

28 jars of various tomato sauces.

2 gallon size freezer bags of frozen green beans.

1 gallon sized freezer bag of Silver Queen sweet corn, off of the cob.

4 jars of TCT Yellow Tomato BBQ sauce.

...and more pepper canning and Acorn and Butternut Squash baby food are being done this evening. 

In conclusion, please take some beans!  Make some soup, eat them fresh, make a casserole, freeze them, whatever - anything you want.  I will personally hand deliver them to you wearing nothing but a bean-leaf loin cloth.  Or I can wear clothes.  Whichever you prefer. 

We also have a million Straight and Crooked Neck Yellow Squash if anyone is interested or knows of someone in need.

Keep it saucey. 

The Greatest Tomatoes in the World

Never underestimate the importance of ordinary items that we take for granted.  Take the tomato for example.  Sweet, juicy, red, ripe tomatoes.  A staple in our 21st century lives.  Those of you who grow your own understand the incomparable difference between those that you watch grow up, and the garbage which are picked too soon, force ripened, and falsely sold as "tomatoes" on grocery store shelves.  That is not a tomato, and you'll never truly understand the difference until you have experienced both.

Trav, Greeny, and myself canned tomatoes two nights ago - Trav, Curt, and I canned more last night - and Greeny and I canned even more tonight.  Those tomatoes taste awesome, but that is not the reason why they are the greatest tomatoes in the world.  No, their greatness is much deeper.

For those of you unaware, my father passed away a little over 5 months ago of a sudden heart attack.    Devastating as it was and still is, our loss continually reminds me to slow down, smile, love everyone, and appreciate everything - especially these tomatoes.

There is something very special about these tomatoes.  Yes, one of the varieties grown is a 5 year Heirloom grown on the farm.  And yes another variety was purchased in an alley market on the streets of Pisa, Italy, seeded,  and successfully smuggled across international lines (thanks Pops).  Both great stories, but not as great as the fact that the seeds that would eventually grow into the plants that would eventually grow these tomatoes were indeed started by my father very shortly before he died, and this is why they are the greatest tomatoes in the world.

These tomatoes in a way kept us going as a family.  After a few sad, confusing weeks - the seeds sprouted.  We then took the time to transfer the seedlings into bigger pots.  Then we took turns watering.  It was a tag-team effort to get them to the point of planting and beyond, and as bad as we missed Dad, he was still a part of it.

Now the garden has exploded and is splattered with red and green.  It's tomato picking time and the garden has never looked better.  For reasons that don't need mentioned I will continue to save these seeds as long as I live, and will cherish the time and energy Pops put into teaching me about gardening and preserving.

      

A Peck (more like a 1/2 bushel) of Pickled Peppers

Why do we refer to it as "canning" anyway?  It's more like "jarring."  Aside from that - Curt, Winger, and myself set out to do some pickles.  No, not those pickles, pickled banana peppers. 

Canning banana peppers is something we normally did with Pops on the back porch so to keep the tradition alive we again performed the task on a back porch, only this time it was my back porch.  

We did two batches.  One with a 3 to 1 vinegar to water ratio with 1 cup of salt, and one with a 2 to 1 vinegar to water ration with 1/2 cup of salt. 

Although straying from the norm, we avoid flying by the seat of our pants concerning anything involving Botulism so both recipes were tried and tested.  Our experimentation pertains mostly to taste and quality, especially when the end result of "winging it" could be Botulism.  No thanks.

We had a mixture of regular Banana peppers and a new variety we have never grown called "Inferno" Banana Peppers.  Greeny and I stuffed a few of the inferno peppers the other night and grilled them.  They are noticeably hotter, but not overwhelming.  Once picked we could not tell the difference so these jars will have a nice mix of hot and sweet peppers.

25 pints later and we're happy.  Another awesome vegetable excellently preserved for future use.

We have enough peppers to do this at least 2 more times so we're thinking about some experimenting with some new recipes.  Suggestions?

This week's thought from the mind of a child:  Winger picked up a few cucumbers that we also picked while in the garden, and proceeded to sit them next to the young cucumber plants we have growing in pots on the back patio.  He told me that it would make them grow "bigga bigga."  I initially told him to be careful and not to play with the cucumbers for fear of him bruising or damaging them.  I then realized that although he was technically "playing" with the cucumbers, the reason for him doing what he did actually makes sense.  To him, anyone bigger or older provides him with food, safety, and nurturing - all things needed to grow bigger.  It makes so much sense in its most simple of forms why we as parents are here - and he gets it at only 2 1/2 years old.  Too bad there are millions of parents who unfortunately do NOT get it.   

Keep it real simple.  

What Tastes Like Purple?

Note to Zirn, Curt, and self - if you think 15 pounds of home-grown, hand-harvested, super awesome tasting Concord grapes smashed and pressed into a 5 gallon glass carboy with sugar and yeast then left to ferment resulting in a sweet, refreshingly delicious beverage sounds too good to be true - you may be right.  

Let me introduce you to Mount Wine-suvious:

and...

You probably can't tell but that cloth wrapped around the neck was originally white.

Seriously, I do have "wine" flowing into the drain in my work room and it smells like an excellent weekend spent in the Napa Valley, but in no way is this a bad thing.  12 months from now this will be a very GOOD thing.  

The second 5 gallon batch (white bucket in the background of the above photos) looks just fine and is showing no signs of overflow.  

Also, the Blueberry Surprise made from leftover simple syrup and year-old frozen blueberries is bubbling away:

Who needs manufactured fermentation locks anyway?  A rubber glove with a pin hole secured with rubber bands works just as well.  When I walked in to check on this today I high-fived the wine like 6 times.  

Good work boys.  Update to the "currently fermenting" list:

2 - 5 gallon batches of concord grape wine made with home-grown grapes

1 - 1 gallon batch of Dandelion Wine

1 - 2 gallon batch of Raspberry Wine

1 - 3 gallon batch of Strawberry Wine, and the hot July moon didn't see shit

1 - 3 gallon batch of Orange Wine

1 - 1 gallon batch of Orange Zest Wine

1 - 1 gallon batch of Blueberry "Wine"

1 - 5 gallon batch of Appleweis

Keep it fermenting.