I've been a little busy....

Our garden has produced some amazing stuff this year. I'm very proud actually. I've grown all that's in this bowl, but the zucchini which came out of my parents garden. My peppers just keep coming and my tomato plants have grown in to monsters. I'm going to stop watering now so that they will all ripen up. If you need or want tomatoes, let me know. I've got a lot of green bells coming in too along with a huge amount of herbs. I've used up my basil, but I have chives, sage, flat leaf and curly parsley, 4 types of thyme, rosemary, Mexican and Greek oregano.

 

I've made three batches of Salsa this season so far. I imagine I'll do another one once the rest of the tomatoes ripen. If you want to can with me, let me know and you can take the salsa home. I decided to try making my very own pasta sauce. We got through a lot of pasta sauce in this house and I often make it just with canned tomato sauce and then add my own veggies and spices. I'd never cooked my own home grown tomatoes down and processed them in to canned sauce. I didn't have a recipe and I just winged it. It's not hard, but I did notice that you have to get the spices just right and balanced so that the tomatoes don't turn bitter or go brown in the pot. It was a bit of work, but it was my very first time making my own sauce and processing my very own tomatoes so I imagine it will be like a breeze the next time I do it. I have made some really yummy dinners with it. I make this below tonight with the mini farfalle pasta with salad and a dash of creme in the sauce. If you take 1 cup sauce and add it to 1 1/2 cups veggie stock or chicken broth it turns in to tomato basil soup. We used the sauce to make calzones and I put it on garlic toast topped with sliced turkey, red bell pepper, provolone cheese and spinach.