Getting saucy

Our first big tomato harvest of the year happened over the weekend. So, on Monday I made sauce for the freezer. I trimmed and cooked the toms with some salt and a few bay leaves. I didn't flavor the sauce any more than that since it will be used in different ways over the months to come. We will flavor it depending on how we eat it when the time comes.

Except for one, each of these containers holds about three cups. The taller one holds five.

I let the sauce cool overnight, then on Tuesday I ran it all through the food mill to remove the skins and most of the seeds. I ended up with five quarts of sauce. We'll eat some of it in the next days, but most of it went into the freezer. There are still a few quarts of frozen sauce from last year to use up. I think we're up to the challenge.

The food mill before I rinsed it off. Luckily, it cleans up pretty easily.

But the freezer is getting full. So when the next harvest comes in, I plan to make sauce again, but reduce it to tomato paste and can it. We do some every year and it works very nicely. The paste is a great addition to so many recipes.

Speaking of harvests, the parcel of chardonnay on the north side of our house was harvested on Tuesday. For whatever reason, the chardonnay grapes are always among the first to be picked. So the 2019 harvest is on!