8.17.2009

Garden Growth and Tomato Sauce

The rain has continued through the first half of August so far, and everything has just kept on growing.  I think that I've only had to get the watering can out once or twice all month. 

The Dhalias have started to bloom...



The sunflowers have really taken off too.  



The tomatoes are still growing like crazy- they kind of look like a mess in this picture though.


The watermelon patch is still looking nice and thick.


Some good looking watermelons peeking through the vines.  Hopefully this one'll be ripe soon.


This 'Chanterais' melon is looking pretty good too.



I decided today to finally use my paste tomatoes to make some tomato sauce.  This is a mix of both types the  'San Marzano' and the 'Juliet'.


It wasn't as hard as I thought it'd be.  Preparing the tomatoes took longer then the actual cooking.  Here are they are after being peeled...


..and and after being cut in half and seeded.


There wasn't much to it after that.  They simmered in the pan with olive oil, garlic and basil for about 15 minutes.



After simmering for a while it got pretty saucy, and smelled really good.  After it was done I ran it through the food processor to make a smoother consistency.  



I think that my first sauce making experiment was a success.  It was pretty easy, and it tasted pretty darn good.  The only thing was that it didn't make as much as I thought.  It takes a lot of tomatoes to make a little sauce I guess.  Good to know.

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