33 lbs of tomatoes makes 15 pints of spaghetti sauce

I really wanted to can my own spaghetti sauce this season, so I looked and looked for the best price I could get on tomatoes and then got to work. (BTW at WinCo I got tomatoes on the vine for .78 cents a pound! WOOHOOO) I couldn’t find a canning recipe that sounded just what I wanted. I had made one batch before this, but the directions called for coring the tomatoes too and I only got 4 pints out of it. So after researching on the internet and tweaking the recipe a tiny bit …. I made this! WONDERFUL!

I blanched the tomatoes and tossed them in ice water and pealed them (took two hours to do 33 pounds!) then I cut out the blossom end, cut them in half and squeezed out the juice and put them in a bowl.

Take a whole white onion (big) chop it up small and then cook in a bit of olive oil until translucent or golden brown, add them to your tomato mixture.

Then I put them on the stove, to cook off some of the excess moister and by cooking and stirring the tomatoes break up into a sauce (if its not go ahead and use your potato masher) When you like the consistency of your sauce, then add the spices and don’t forget to add lemon juice to raise the acidy if you are going to can in the water bath …. If you are pressures canning you don’t need to add the lemon juice. If you add meat to your sauce it HAS to be pressure canned, so if you don’t have a pressure canner and want to have meat in your sauce just cook it up that day and add it to the sauce when you heat it up on the stove.

Scoop into your sterilized jars and leave about ½ inch headspace. Water bath for 30 mins (adjusting for your altitude – I have to add 10 mins to everything I can)

We also made a home made pizza dough and then made a pizza with this sauce, YUMM!

Banana Carrot Muffins YUM!

Well I am trying to save money by making things from scratch and not mixes. I am also trying to cut out unnecessary ingredients and dyes. Well that had lead me on a search for more yummy recipes! This one is a HUGE hit with the family! It takes some prep, like buy the bananas a week early so they are nice and brown when you are ready to use them. Also I get carrots on sale and buy a lot and then just spend an hour or so shredding them and putting them into plastic baggies and freezing them for later. But that is the two most time consuming parts of this recipe!

2 C white whole wheat flour or sprouted wheat flour.
1 t Baking Soda
½ t salt
½ t ground cinnamon
1 ¼ cups mashed bananas
1 C brown sugar
¼ C veg. oil
2 eggs
1 C finely grated carrots
½ C chopped pecans.

Preheat over to 350 degrees. Lightly grease pan or use muffin tins

Mix together flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and set aside.

I a large mixing bowl combine the Banana’s, sugar, oil and eggs. Beat at Med speed. Stir in dry ingredients, then fold in carrots and nuts. Fill into muffin tins and bake for 25 to 28 mins.

Cool on rack, makes 12 muffins!