Puree

Puree - To rub through a strainer or process (food) in a blender.

September 3, 2009

Our whole garden-in-pots idea, while better than no garden at all, hasn't panned out quite as well as we had hoped. By now we should be overrun with fresh produce. Yeah, not so much. Our pots aren't big enough, for one thing. Anyway, a nice friend in the ward kindly gave me some tomatoes, and so did my inlaws. I don't have enough to bottle, but didn't want to lose what I had waiting for more. So I pureed what I had and stuck it in the freezer until I have more. I got a handy-dandy food mill from Back to Basics, which I LOVE, and it pureed the tomatoes in no time at all. So if anyone is overrun with tomatoes and wants to share, I'm almost (but not quite) begging. Our cucumbers died and our peppers didn't produce at all, but the plants are alive, whatever that's worth. I thought the cantaloupe was going to make it, but it has since died. Our topsy-turvies didn't do very well, but I think that was due to poor placement. I don't think they got enough sun where we had them. The birds have eaten all our grapes. Do I sound pathetic enough? So pretty much this year is a bust. Live and learn. Our peaches are looking really nice, though. They are nice sized, turning a lovely color, but not quite ready.

I tried doing tomato sauce last year instead of regular stewed tomatoes and I like it tons better. My kids get freaked out by the stewed tomatoes remnants floating in their soup or chili or whatever, so sauce saves on having to look at turned up noses at dinner. Plus I don't have to touch the tomatoes. They are so slimy and gross when the skins are off. My food mill is a little gift from heaven. I used it to make my blackberry syrup, and even without the "berry screen," there are no seeds in my syrup. I used it once to make applesauce, but I like my applesauce more chunky, so I'll just keep doing it the hard way.

Today was one of those days. I was late to work because the van wouldn't start. I think/hope it's just the battery. I was busy the whole time at work, barely had time to eat my lunch, and was even there a little past time finishing up this and that. I came home and took Taylor to piano, came home, got dinner ready and ate. Then I went to hem my new formal dress for my cruise only to find out that I didn't have any gray thread, and I couldn't get by with black or white. So I went to Walmart for thread. Then I found out that I had no cash (the thread was $1), so I bought some Nestle Drumsticks since I couldn't bring myself to put $1 on my debit card. I came home, got the dress hemmed, and did my tomatoes. None of the food mill parts can go in the dishwasher so I had to wash all that by hand and clean up the floor from all the tomato splatters. Hopefully tomorrow we will have time to get the van taken care of.