What I Been Doing

So my friends have been like, "Yo, J! Where ya been at?" "Whataya been doing?" "We haven't seen you lately..." Retorting, I'm like, "I've been processing the fruits of my summer labors." And their like. "huh?"

All in all, that's about 2.5 gallons of spaghetti sauce, a couple cups of shucked green beans, and about 10 pints of tomatillo salsa. It may not look like much, but each bag or two of sauce takes about a day, and each batch of jars takes another day. Let's not even talk about shucking those beans. That top photo is about seven full days of work. The processing is an amazing time-suck. Anybody else feel the same way? And then ultimately still compulsed to do it again with the next 15 pounds of heirloom tomatoes.

At this point, I'm admittedly a little bummed that the garden has slowed down, especially since all of my baby bok choy sprouts have been totally chewed down despite my diatomaceous earth applications. However, I am breathing a sigh of relief that I can actually manage the yields trickling out of the garden these days.

For the last batch of sauce, I tried something new. Instead of the classic boiling method to remove the tomato skins, I harkened back to all that pa am tomaquet that I've been eating throughout the summer. So instead of using fossil fuels and boiling water, I used some calories (of which I have plenty to spare) and proceeded to grate all the tomatoes. In hindsight, the process took just as much time as boiling, but seemed less of a hassle. Of course, seeds were left in the sauce-more fiber my mom tells me.

This year's sauces for the most part have been Cleveland Brown orange colored because of the multiple colors of tomatoes used in each batch of sauce. But for next year's sauce making and ultimately tomato plantings, I want to keep more purity of the heirlooms in their individual sauces. I think green, purple, and white sauces would be sweet looking and would provide a total wow factor when actually taking that first bite. I will probably need to forgo the plum lemon and orange banana varieties for the sake of room.