Tomato Sauce - with a twist

This kind of frugal, simple lifestyle requires a certain amount of adapting and being resourceful.
The tomatoes are coming in by the bucket full every day now and I wanted to get started on making tomato sauce, but the apples on the trees are not ripe yet. The supplies for selling in the Farm-gate shop are dwindling, and I need to get these tomatoes out of my kitchen.
What to do? I've already washed and put a few bags of whole tomatoes into the freezers, waiting until the apples ripen.
In the middle of the night the answer came to me. Plums... or any fruit for that matter.
So yesterday I concocted a recipe by taking the basics from three different favorite Tomato Sauce recipes.
The resulting sauce was well received by the family at our weekly get together dinner last night, and the flavors will continue to develop.
I even remembered to write it all down as I added the ingredients, so here is the recipe if you want to give it a go with whatever fruit you may have. Why stick to using only apples?

Tomato Sauce  

6kgs Tomatoes
1kg Plums (or apples or any fruit)
2-4 large Garlic cloves (or to taste)
400g Onions  
 Roughly cut up and add;

1 kg sugar
2 tablespoons salt
3 teaspoons mustard powder
3 teaspoons curry powder
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon chill powder (optional)
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper or pepper corns 
1 litre white or brown vinegar  
 **I forgot to add the vinegar when I posted this recipe last night but have corrected this now.**

Bring to the boil and simmer for approx two hours or until it starts to thicken slightly and the amount has decreased by roughly 4cm from the top. Stir frequently to prevent sticking to the bottom of the pan.
**Added  10/1/16**  Today I made another batch and this time took note that I simmered the pot on the stove for more than three hours until the mixture had reduced by roughly one quarter in quantity.

Take off the heat and put the mixture through a Mouli .. into another large pot.

Put back onto the heat and simmer for another 30 minutes (stir frequently) before bottling whilst hot.
Screw the bottle lids on immediately for a good seal. 

I like making sauce because I don't need to spend ages finely cutting up the ingredients. A rough chop is all that is required because it breaks down after simmering for all that time and then it goes through the Mouli. 

Tomato Sauce is another of those traditional Barossa foods that every dedicated Barossa house-wife/person will make every summer for use throughout the year. Use with meats, pasties and sausage rolls, in sandwiches and pasta dishes, to flavor soups, stews etc.

Happy sauce making!

I'll be making another batch tomorrow.



  

The Country Show

The Nashi pears have been prolific in one of the orchards this year. Unlike all of the other fruit trees, the birds have not touched the Nashi trees. I wonder what it is about them that makes them undesirable to the birds? They are amazing in taste and juice for the humans though.  What can I do with them? They are little juice bombs and drying them doesn't seem right, so we've been eating them in great quantities.

Everyone in the Barossa is just about Nashi-ed out too I suspect, after the farm-gate stall has, for the past few days, had a steady stream of cars stopping to make their purchases of Nashi pears. Another advert in the Barossa Online Classifieds page on Facebook has been a roaring success.

 Just doing my bit to help keep our small Agricultural Show going by entering a few things in the Show Hall sections.

Imagine my surprise when I went later in the day to bring my entries home. 
I started entering only five years ago when the daughter of a friend asked me to make the effort and help keep this show going. She wanted to start a section for dairy produce, and as we had a dairy cow, I was fair game to rope in. I had a few wins and placings, so I enter a few things each year.
Little Lavendar's milk won first prize in the milk section that was well represented by all of the professional dairies in the area. I wonder what those dairy folks would think if they knew they had been pipped by a little cow that is only half dairy breed? lol
I guess organics and grass fed is the winner here.
I put in some Feta cheese, yoghurt, butter, eggs, honey, plum sauce, tomato sauce, cordial and milk with a place or win in every section.
Super pleased to have earned a second place with my tomato sauce as there are some seriously good sauce makers here.
When I started entering I was considered one of the "younger ones", which was five years ago when I was fifty five!
These country shows are at risk of ceasing to exist and it is only with the enormous efforts by the numerous volunteers and the ordinary folks like us, supporting them by entering a few things to make some competition.
When I was very young I can recall going to the show hall early on show morning with Dad who entered his prize winning Dahlias every year.
So if you have a country show in your town or area, think about entering something in the show hall sections. It doesn't have to be fancy, or even very good, but it's great fun. Winning a place or a first prize is just the bonus.
Cheers!

Time...lack of it, and finding the remedy.

Like most of us, I'm usually feeling overwhelmed by the demands of all that needs to be done, but now I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.
A couple of weeks ago, in the middle of a Monday night, I woke and decided that now is the time for me to retire from my paid employment.
No, nothing went wrong at work, I still enjoy my job, but it hit me suddenly that now is the time for me..... to slow down and allow myself some time.
Due to living a simple, rich and frugal life for the past decade, (yes those two words rich and frugal can belong together) we have no debts, so we are perfectly placed for me to step down.
So it's official, and after a few more weeks of fulfilling my work commitments, I shall be a retiree.
It's a wonderful feeling and I'm so very grateful that my life's path has led me to this point!
Life has been so very full these last few weeks (what's new?) and this post is long overdue.
I really don't know where to start. Can you sense that rushing sensation coming through my writing?
A few deep breaths, perhaps a cup of tea.....
So I'll just run through what we've been up to lately with a few pictures.

Last week I took a day away from the farm and work, to spend some time with my oldest longest time friend, Rachel, on her birthday.  She lives in the beautiful Adelaide Hills so we drove down to Brighton beach for lunch on what was a perfect day.
I could get quite used to having a day away a bit more regularly.

Rachel has been drawing and painting ever since I've known her, when we were pre-schoolers. Her art works are stunning, and I'm very lucky to have a few of hers hanging in our home.
I'm completely in awe of people who have great talents, and here are a few of her pictures that she has hanging around her home.

 A couple of weeks ago Brian and I went to an auction sale in Angaston. Of course, the things that we were interested in bidding for were at the beginning, in the middle and right at the end, so we were required to be there, waiting around for the whole four hours.
That was a test of my patience I can tell you.....

But I hadn't been to an auction for years, and it was good fun. The large items that Brian was keen on, fetched higher prices than he was prepared to pay, but we fluked a few very cheap purchases.
I couldn't resist offering $1 for a few lots of odds and ends that no-one wanted.

So many treasures in this tub for $1

 

 

This was also in that $1 lot. I'm a sucker for a pretty jug, and I reckon we can never have too many!

 And so was this pile of plates and bowls.

Glass cups and saucers are sure to come back in vogue some day! ;)

Brian picked up a gas heater for his shed for $1, and I got a little two burner gas camping stove with small gas bottle included for $2..!! We came away happy. We caught up with our neighbors during those long waiting around hours, saw some rather interesting sights, and as far as a cheap, half day's entertainment goes, it was a cracker!

 Both Brian and I, over the space of two days, sighted three small Brown snakes a bit too close to our living areas for comfort. I'm most concerned for the safety of these two precious members of our family; Alan loves to play with lizards, so an encounter with a snake is quite likely. Meg would probably just stand and bark, but it's possible she could also get excited and go for a grab too.

One snake was located and dispatched, but I placed this net wrap from our large round hay bales along the snake access areas, so they will get caught if they try to slither through.

We're not irrationally fearful of snakes as such, and have total respect for them if they would just keep away from where we and our animals are moving about.

Hay bale net wrap around the base of this compost bin where I saw a Brown snake.

There have been two birthdays in the family during the past two weeks, so dinner in the dining room is called for on these special occasions. 

Special guests from Victoria stayed with us for a couple of days, but it wasn't for long enough, so we talked and talked into the small hours each night. 

Lots of cooking and meals preparation. 

We're picking a half case of tomatoes almost every day now, so some are bagged and put into the Farm-gate shop.

Some are washed, put into 2kg lots, and into the freezer until I have time to do something with them.

Two big batches of Jembella Farm Tomato Sauce have been made and are still waiting for the labels to be stuck on.

There was a hot spell in the past couple of weeks, but on this 41 degree day, cooking tomato sauce on the stove top was no issue. The smells and heat went straight up the chimney. 

In fact, lots of my summer time cooking happens on this gas hotplate on top of the wood stove.

These plums from Brian's roadside foraging, made a big batch of plum jam.

 

Plums also provided the fruit element in both batches of Jembella Farm Tomato Sauce

 Last week Brian received a call from one of our  Beekeeping Workshop attendees.  Ray had inherited some hives on his property but doesn't have the equipment or experience to look after them, so Brian went to check it out and show him what to do. 

As it turned out, Ray and Lynne are happy for us to maintain the hives for them, in return for a small bit of honey, and as they are located over the ranges, more than forty minutes away, their climate and flowering patterns are different to what we experience here. 

This season has been a tough one for our local area, but over there at Ray's, it's a different story.

So Brian took a day off work last Monday and we spent all day sorting hives, cleaning them out and collecting honey.

 It's good to have some honey in the storage cupboard again.

And now, back to the serious business of preparing my entries for this year's annual Angaston Show on Saturday.

Yoghurt and soft cheese are both in progress on the kitchen bench.

I've gathered all types of various jams, sauces and pickles, honey, eggs, apples and tomatoes to add to the entries for displaying in the beautiful historic Show Hall for celebrating this 120th Annual Show.

Oh dear, this has turned into an epic, and there's still so much to show and tell..!

So for now, I look forward to slower days ahead....maybe! :) 

The raspberries need picking, and so do the nectarines, before the birds take more than their fair share. 

Cheers for now and thanks for visiting.

I love reading comments, but often don't have time to respond, so I apologise in advance for that.

I also totally get it that you may not be inspired to leave a comment, so I'm just grateful that you've made it this far through reading my posts.

However, if you DO feel inspired to leave a comment, I'd love to know from which part of the world you're from and a little bit about you and your situation in life.  If you're a blogger, I generally trace you back to your blog, and have discovered wonderful blogger friends who inspire me in many ways.

Thank you sincerely!

Can you ever have too many tomato plants?

 

How are your tomato plants coming along?

This is how we gardening folk are greeting each other at this time of year.  Have you got your plants in?  Have you pruned them yet?

I handed over the tomato growing to Brian last year and it was a learning experience to watch his meticulous pruning. The tomato crop was  a bumper one during a year when most people I spoke to were having a bad tomato season.

Now he's got the job permanently whilst I grow the other veges.

As the cellar is still groaning full of jars of tomato sauce, chutney and preserves, we thought we'd keep our crop a bit smaller this year. Only fifty plants.....!!!  

Well, one can never have too many tomatoes. Can one??  It's addictive. 

I'll make more preserves, we'll enjoy lots of fresh tomato juice and share some with family and friends. 

Brian grew the plants from seeds that he planted in punnets in August and got them started in the glass house.  In late September he planted them out into the garden. This is the time to plant tomatoes here in the Barossa Valley, but the times vary depending on where you are and your local conditions.  Now they are big enough to trellis the plants and to do the first pruning.

I'm not going to explain about pruning the plants, there are lots of instructions for doing that elsewhere in gardening books and sites on line. 

However, if you want Brian to describe the process, I'll ask him to post a blog on here.

                                                            Before pruning and trellising.

                                                   After pruning and tying onto the trellis.

   

This is how the pruned tomato plant should look.

 Brian pruned off some of  the lateral shoots, leaving two main growing stems.

                  Now I'm going to make new plants from the bits he cut off.

 

I learned how to do this a few years ago and have done it ever since. Frugality at its best.

Take the laterals that you have pruned off the bushes and trim them.

 

 

Trim some of the leaves and stems so the plant will put its energy into putting out new roots rather than lush green leaves.

 

This is how they should look after trimming. Cut off half of the larger leaves. Leaving half leaves.

Place cuttings in a jar of water, rain water is best, and stand near a north facing window.

Keep the water topped up because we want to encourage roots to grow up along the stem.

 As soon as they have roots I'll plant them in the ground. These plants will be our second crop which will bear fruit right through until the first frosts in late Autumn.

If you are buying your tomato plants you could buy just one punnet or even just one plant, take cuttings and triple your crop for very little cost.

                                         

An Ordinary Weekend

We loaded three of our young cows onto the trailer and brought them to this new paddock on Sunday morning. (No pics of the loading or the trailer ride.. way too preoccupied with our task at hand to pause for a photo shoot.)
They loaded easily even though none of them had been onto the trailer before. Treated with kindness from the very beginning of their lives with us, they have no reason to doubt or not to trust us.  Bubble and Lavender are both young heifers and possibly will be kept for future breeders to add to our small herd or they will be sold to a breeder or possibly they will be grown on for meat. Klaus, the young steer went with them to the new paddock. He will be butchered here on our farm in October when he is twelve months old.

One of the fences looked a bit flimsy so we put a temporary electric fence along that side. Anything that could touch the hot wire had to be cleared out of the way so it doesn't short out. The hot wire is powered by a small portable solar unit and is worth its weight in gold.

Because we both work during the week days, weekends are jam packed with the endless tasks that need doing around the farm. Morning tea is a tradition that we must have on weekends. Home made biscuits of course.

I picked the last of the pumpkins from the vines we planted back in September last year. The vines need to die off before picking the pumpkins. This is when they have matured and grown to their fullest. Try to snip them off the vine to retain the stalk so they will keep longer. If stored in an airy place they will keep for ages. This lot will supply us for the entire year ahead.

Soon the chooks (chickens) will be allowed access into the fenced off area where we grew our summer vegetables. Our Summer patch has 50% shade cloth covering the whole area which stops scorching and drying out in the hottest summer conditions that we have here. This protection from the elements  is also probably why the tomatoes are still ripening.
 I needed to transplant some rhubarb plants from the Summer patch into another garden so there was a rhubarb and apple pie that required making from all the stems I had to cut off.

The apple trees were pruned. Brian is the master pruner, while I'm the laborer who picks up the leftovers.

The last of the tomatoes are going into the pot with apples, onions, garlic, vinegar and spices for a few more bottles of traditional Barossa Tomato Sauce. Every self respecting Barossa cook makes at least one batch of Tomato Sauce during summer. It's just a bit disconcerting (and tiresome) to still be making it during winter!
A batch of soft cheese (Quark) is draining in the background.

Last of the daily chores is milking Daisy and feeding the bobby calves. The single stand portable milking unit makes life much easier.
Aahh... must be time for a glass of red. Cheers!

Preserving Tomatoes Without Gadgets & Expensive Equipment

Tomato Season 

It's the last day of Autumn and who would believe we'd still be picking tomatoes?
Unusually warm weather continues to ripen the ones still hanging on the bushes. Between Brian and I we planted approx 60 plants in October last year. I know.. Crazy!, but we can never have too many tomatoes.. can we?   Our cellar is stocked with all of the standards; sauce, chutney, chilli sauce and preserved puree. We enjoyed them in the hot weather juiced with our greens and abundance of cucumbers and zucchinis. We ate them raw in salads and cooked up in tomato and onion pie. But still they keep landing on the kitchen table by the bucket full and of course I couldn't even think about wasting them.
I've noticed some of my friends bringing their glut of fruits and vegetables to share with work mates because they don't know what to do with them. Whilst I agree that sharing is a lovely thing to do, I also think it's a shame that they went to all the trouble of planting, watering, nurturing, picking the crop, just to give it all away.
When we put our heart and soul into growing food we really need to know how to preserve it so we can enjoy it later in the year. Why buy cans of tomatoes of dubious origin, quality, and perhaps dangerously, packaged in plastic lined cans when we can reach for a jar of our own preserves? Foods grown in our own organically enriched soil and preserved without additives is the ultimate in self sufficiency. Many are put off because they think they need special equipment and loads of time to preserve food, but that really isn't the case at all.
I prefer to preserve in jars so I can store in a cupboard or cellar rather than freezing and taking up precious freezer space. 
Here's an easy way of preserving tomatoes using a large pot, a cook top and some recycled jars.  The method is the same for a large amount of tomatoes or just a few.

You don't need fancy expensive jars, but they must have metal lids with the thin rubber layer on the inside. My jars are all collected and donated by my friends because we never buy anything in jars.
Wash and dry the jars. I never sterilize my jars and have never had any produce go off, but if you feel the need to sterilize them just place in a cool to moderate oven for a half an hour.

Wash and roughly chop tomatoes. Cut out any discoloured bits. Fill the pot to the brim and add a good bit of salt.  For this size pot I used 2 desertspoons of salt. Salt must be added because tomatoes are high in acid and will ferment, oozing out of their jars if not salted. Ugly and smelly!
They must also be very well cooked to prevent fermenting.
Bring the pot to the boil with the lid ON and then simmer with lid OFF for at least three hours on low heat. You will be expecting the liquid to reduce by a quarter or a third. Stir regularly so the bottom doesn't catch and burn.

Take off the stove and use a stick blender to puree the mushy, well cooked tomatoes. If you don't have a stick blender, cool the liquid to lukewarm before blending in small batches at a time in your blender. Don't blend while hot!

Now the puree must be heated again so that it is poured into jars while hot.
Fill jars to 1/2 centimetre below the top and screw the lid on tight immediately. Set on a wooden board or table to let the jars cool. Listen for the lids to pop as they vacuum seal.
After a few hours, or next morning, run your finger across the lid to feel the slight concave of the round seal indicator or the flat lid. If a lid hasn't sealed, remove lid and put jar into the microwave to reheat before screwing the lid on firmly again.  If it still isn't sealing you will know that the lid is damaged and you can either find a new spare lid, and repeat the microwave process, or keep that jar in the fridge to use in your next tomato recipe.
Between now and next tomato season we will use up all of my approx 5dozen jars of preserved tomato puree in soups, curries, pasta dishes, casseroles, hot pots etc.
It's not just about saving money. It's the satisfaction of growing, preserving, and knowing there are no preservatives in our food.

Give it a go. Try just a couple of jars to start with. I guarantee you will be hooked.
Let me know how you get on.