Harvesting the Garden

The tomato crop finally found its groove and I am so on it!
After waiting all summer long for our tomatoes to ripen in any kind of numbers we have finally hit the mother load and that means tomato sauce.


We had a ton of ripe red and yellow beauties so I cut them lovingly and had them all hang out together in the crock pot for a really long time.  Into their warm bath I added garlic and fresh oregano and basil from our kitchen garden.  The house smelled so good with the herbs and garlic.  "Mom!  Are we having pizza?"  It even sent Max into a pizza frenzy with just the wafting scents.

Aren't they just so happy looking in that crock pot?

 The final product required a little, OK a lot of use of "puree" on the blender but the results were well worth the extra effort.  Now, I went against all of the "how to make tomato sauce" rules and didn't peel or seed the tomatoes.  I did however crock them for about 10 hours and then again after I pureed the tomato mush.  I would say that if you don't really want to peel and seed 25 or more tomatoes, this method works really well and tastes great too!

Look how purty!

Now I need to come up with great things to do with my 4 quarts of super yummy tomato sauce. Hmmm.


Renee's Peel and Seed included Tomato Sauce       Print recipe


I didn't measure how many tomatoes I used except that they fill to capacity my large crock pot.  Actually, I didn't really measure anything so this is less of a recipe than a place to start.


Fresh tomatoes, alot of them quartered
A large handful of fresh oregano, chopped
A larger handful of fresh basil, chopped
5 cloves of garlic, chopped
fresh ground pepper, maybe 2 teaspoons or so
1 onion, diced


Throw everything into the crock pot and cook on low for 8-10 hours.  Transfer to a blender in batches and puree till it is smooth.  CAUTION!  When you are blending hot liquids make sure that you pit a town or other over the top or hot liquid will fly out and you will get burned or you will have to clean up the horrendous mess you have created all over your kitchen.
After you have pureed the initial crocking, put the sauce back into the crock pot and cook on high for 2-3 more hours.  
Use as you see fit or can it to use later.  Don't forget to give some away too!  This is crazy good karma your creating.

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