Yesterday Kristina and I started the morning at Brosi Farms in hopes of picking Roma tomatoes, which we would later turn into salsa, and roasted tomato sauce and then can. However we were very disappointed with the lack of ripeness at Brosi and headed out to Lehne Farms. The lady at the produce weigh station told us the pickings for Roma would be slim because of the weather. However, Kristina and I were so happy with the bounty that we kept picking and picking and picking....then other people came out to where we were and picked and picked as well. The farther we got down the rows the larger and riper the tomatoes were! More and more people came to "our picking area," and so we picked faster, hoping to get the best and most. We piled all our work into the car and went to get the fruit weighed, keeping in mind we only needed 32 lbs. total. We were shocked with laughter when we were told we picked not 100 lbs, but 104 lbs of tomatoes!! We were so overwhelmed we laughed so hard we were in tears and people were starting to stare at us! So, starting at one in the afternoon yesterday we made and canned 60 pints of salsa and 20 quarts of roasted tomato sauce. I finished processing the last batch a little after midnight. Thankfully Jason and my mom pitched in to help. We (Kristina and I) have NEVER and will NEVER do anything like this again!
After hours of work Kristina was cheerful as every, and I was beginning to peeter out.
After hours of work Kristina was cheerful as every, and I was beginning to peeter out.Kristina and my mom tasted each batch of salsa for the flavor and added ingredients.
What a guy! Jason put his plans for the day aside and chopped 75 cloves of garlic and was the best salsa "stirrer" ever! Funny side story.....so we needed 89 cloves of garlic for both projects...well, I didn't know that the small individual cloves counted as one clove. I thought the whole "large" clove counted as one clove. So here I am putting the bigger cloves into our box and I turned in all seriousness to Kristina told her that Lehne's didn't have enough garlic cloves, starting to panic at where we were going to get enough cloves......yet, another time we busted out with unstoppable laughter!
Salsa anyone?
Delicious roasted tomato sauce
Finally at the end of a LONG day everything was finished.
6 comments:
Yum! Yum! I am so impressed with all of your "homemade" food talents - I've never even tried it!
wow - what an endeavor! and a good idea too. We're going to have over 100 tomatoes from our garden this year and i'm trying to think of ways to use them. roasted tomato sauce! yummm.
Wow, that definitely seems like a lot more work than I have time for. I think it is great that you guys get to do these fun things together. I hope the salsa turned out ok for you.
Homemade salsa. . .so good! I have canned pears and applesauce and get tired after a few jars. I am very impressed.
And now I see why you don't have time to catch up on your blog. Your salsa, etc is impressive!! (See you tomorrow!!!)
That's hilarious--it sounds a bit like college when you used 2 whole boxes of spaghetti noodles for a medium size pot and I am such a saver that I froze the noodles! Your cooking hasn't changed much! : )
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