Canning

Hello again!  That is if anyone is out there, reading what I have to say ;-)  I've been busy prepping produce for winter.  Do any of you can or freeze to save fresh produce for the snowy season?  I usually freeze shredded zucchini and can salsa and tomato sauce.  This year I also made pickles and am going to freeze beans. 
In making tomato sauce last night I discovered a simple recipe made better by a simple antique contraption called a food mill or maybe it's called a strainer.  I really don't know, it was Zach's grandma's and when she passed away, it was passed on to me.  Regardless of it's name, it's genius!! Here's some pictures of the tomato sauce I made yesterday.  A recipe similar to the one I used, can be found here.  After I put my tomatoes in the pans I added olive oil, salt, pepper, and chopped garlic.  I thought about adding some basil, but decided against it so that the sauce is more versatile when it's all done.  Anyhow check it out!



My crop, fresh from the garden!

All the tomatoes after they were in the oven for a little over an hour.  I halved them, and put them face down, then put some olive oil over them and sprinkled them with chopped garlic, salt and pepper.

This is the handy dandy contraption that cut so much work from this process.

Here's all the seeds and peels....that means they aren't in my tomato sauce and my hands didn't get burnt trying to peel the tomatoes like I have in the past ;)



Here's the finished sauce.  I let it cool in the stock pot and then funneled it into jars.  I am going to freeze each jar, so I left room at the top of the jar for the sauce to expand as it freezes.



The next post will be about flash freezing beans and I hope to have one soon about the progress with C's eczema-- I'll give you a hint....it's improving!!