Need a Couple of Recipes...

[bobbi-j]

I know, Bay, packets from the store when I have garlic, onions and celery from the garden is utterly shameful! I try to make as much from scratch as I can, but I get lazy sometimes and it's faster. Open the jar, mix in the packet and it's done.

I do have a dehydrator and just dried 4 racks worth of tomato slices. Those are now in the freezer. I plan on turning them into powder when I get a chance, and then I'm going to dehydrate some more to use on salads in the winter. That sounds wonderful! I can't make myself buy them from the store anymore, either. Every now and again I'll buy raspberries or strawberries from the store and am disappointed because they have no flavor. I guess I just need that reminder now and then. Right now we're eating the strawberries as fast as we can pick them. Raspberries should be ready in a week or two, and it'll be the same with them. We also have wild black raspberries that produced like crazy in July. I froze a bunch of those. It's required around here for birthdays to have made from scratch angel food cake, raspberries from the patch and or strawberries, and "real" whipped cream.

 

[canesisters]

What we do is can tomatoes in quart jars. We did the raw pack thats in the ball jar book and store them that way. That way we have more flexibility with what we've produced. We did salsa and the rest were just canned whole.

It's not as fast as having jars ready to open and heat up but we haven't found a canned sauce recipe we really do backflips for yet either.

Me too. About half of my tomatoes get quartered and canned with a little diced onion for later use. This year I tried to can brushetta (sp?) but it didn't turn out great - so I used it to make sauce (or gravy if your Italian). THAT turned out wonderful. Also made some south-west salsa last night.

 

[Jared77]

I actually grilled some of the tomatoes to give them an even richer/smokier flavor. It was time consuming but really added a great dimension of flavor for our salsa.

I like the diversity that canned tomatoes gives us. Still has great flavor but I'm not stuck with jars forcing me to make this or that.