My garden is going gangbusters this month. But then again, isn’t everyone’s? Like Susan’s garden, I have tomatoes coming out of my ears, but I’m not complaining. Instead, I’m whipping up quick batches of tomato sauce and freezing them for the cold months.
I planted a number of varieties of tomatoes last May — including Romas, Better Boys, Brandywine, Yellow Brandywine, Mr. Stripey, and my favorite Yellow Pear. For a while there, it felt like we’d never have enough tomatoes, but now we have plenty.
To make tomato sauce, I chop whatever tomatoes I have on hand, simmer them in a pot for a little while, run everything through a food mill to remove skins and seeds, pour the results into freezer-safe containers, and then freeze. I don’t add anything else and instead wait until later on when I’m cooking.
I’m actually filling my freezer with a lot of August’s bounty. I’ve already made loads of basil paste for future pestos, sauces, casseroles, and pizzas and will be making it up until the first frost in October, when I’ll do one final mega harvest of that particular herb. I have plenty of edamame, as well as well as grated zucchini, which I’ll sneak into soups and casseroles and hope my kids won’t notice. I’ve even frozen fresh corn on the cob — I just shucked the ears, blanched them, and then put them in freezer bags.
There have been some days when I’ve spent a lot of time in the kitchen dealing with some vegetable or the other and it feels like I’ll never get to the bottom of the pile. But I always do and in a few months, I’ll be glad I did all this now.
