sauce

I think I have my mojo back. At least I did this weekend. Price and I got up early and went to Haymarket to get tomatoes for sauce and veggies for the buns. I knew I wanted to make a lot of sauce and I wanted it fresh so we went to Haymarket to get a lot of tomatoes. Well a lot is an understatement. I did not feel like getting bags of tomatoes by picking out each tomato, so we went to area where they have a boxes of tomatoes. Well did you know that they are 25 pounds each? I did not, but that did not stop my from swallowing my fear and buying 2 tomato varieties. 25 +25 = 50 pounds!

So we dropped it off and I ended back out to the store to the quart size Ball jars, meat for meatballs, and some other stuff. Once I was back home I started cutting, and cutting, and cutting. It seemed like it was never ending but was relaxing and worth it. My feet were sore by the end of the day from standing at the stove for hours on end but I love that kinda of pain. Like working out at the gym and being sore later on.

Well all of these tomatoes yielded about 22/23 quarts of marinara sauce. Even though I just bought a pot for this I had to use another because we had soo much! I had bought a 20 quart stainless steel pot last weekend and it was put though a very food first test. It passed with flying colors since nothing burned, it held heat evenly, it held heat well, and it was easy to clean. Loved it.

Besides the marinara sauce Price and I made meatballs using 4 pounds of meat (beef and pork), onion, parsley, breadcrumbs, cheese, 5 eggs, crushed red pepper, salt, and pepper. I also used a package of hot and sweet Italian Sausage. Since you can’t put meat into sauce and can it (well maybe you can, I just head you can’t so I am not about to question it) we divided the sauce up for canning and freezing. I froze the meatballs that we will eat with the jarred sauce.

Every time we heard a lid pop we counted down with the # remaining that needed to pop and we would then cheer. I think canning is going to turn into a new addiction. I love how the process, the popping, and how I have all that sauce and I still have room in my freezer. I now have 14 happy quarts sitting in my cabinets.

I’m hoping this productivity carries over into the week since I have scrapbooking to do and clean up and an office to rearrange.