Spaghetti Sauce

Scald and peel half a bushel of tomatoes (we used our food strainer instead), 6 cups chopped onions, 4 chopped green peppers, 1 clove of garlic. Cook for 1 and a half hours, stirring frequently. Add 1 pt olive oil, 1 cup sugar, 1/2 cup salt, 1 tbsp oregano, 1 tbsp crushed basil leaves, 1 tbsp italian seasoning, 1 tbsp parsley, 5-12 oz cans tomato paste, 4 jalopeno peppers. Cook another 45 min stirring frequently. Put in jars. Heat lids and seals to boiling. Put lids and seals on jars. Process 15 min. in water bath canner.

August 14, 2012 1

Spaghetti Sauce

Today, we worked on making spaghetti sauce. I got this recipe from Sally, our pastor’s wife. We really like it.

Spaghetti Sauce

The sauce simmering in the pot. Can anyone guess what we are having for supper?

Enjoy your day and God bless.

September 7, 2011 6

Hot Pepper Relish

Today, I made hot pepper jelly. This is a favorite of ours. We serve it with cream cheese and Ritz crackers. When I take it to church on Sunday night, it goes super fast. I did not have enough hot peppers to make it but the pastor’s wife gave me enough. I have been so blessed this year. Even though our garden did not do as well as I would have liked, others have given us so much. Anyway, the recipe I use is on the sure-jell recipe instruction pamphlet. I guess the only different thing I do is that I put the pepper mixture into the blender and pulse instead of trying to chop them up finely. I’m lazy that way. I always put the hot pepper jelly in half pint jars. I did not have enough empty ones so I bought a dozen yesterday at Wal-Mart. I think they are soooo cute, don’t you? The lids came with them.

Saturday, we did go with the Horn’s to Paint Bank. However, I forgot the camera. For those of you who have been reading my blog for awhile, this probably does not come as a surprise. What might surprise you though, is that Vicki forgot their camera too. We did take a few pictures with the phone but I am not sure how to get them off. Well, anyway, we went to the fish hatchery, to the general store, ate lunch at the Swinging Bridge Restaurant (which was way over priced in our opinion), saw the buffalo, and walked around some at the campground. It was such a fun day.

Yesterday, we went to Sam’s. It rained off and on all day and then in the evening the heavy rains came. We have probably gotten over 5 inches. Our power was off for about 5 hours. We lit some candles and went out to the glassed in front porch. Hubby played guitar for us and we told the girls stories of when we were young. It was fun. We are still getting heavy rain in spurts. We really needed rain-just not the whole years worth in one day.

I also wanted to share this soup recipe with you all. Our local supermarket sells a 15 bean soup mixture. They have it with the dried beans. The brand they carry is http://www.hurstbeans.com/. I follow the instructions on the back of the bag (kinda). Well, I did cook the beans like it said. I added kielbasa sausage to it and a can of my homemade salsa. I used a qt of our fresh canned tomatoes. I then added some potatoes, corn, peas, and spinach to it. It is a really good hearty soup and fairly inexpensive. It is really good without adding the veggies. Either way you like it. I have made it with hamburger, ground turkey, whatever I have on hand. It is also good without any meat but Hubby is a meat eater. We serve it with hot cornbread. YUM! Oh, I almost forgot to tell you, I do not use the ham powder base that comes inside the bag of beans. Just my personal preference.

I hope you all have a great evening and God bless.

September 6, 2011 7

Orchard

Friday evening we went to our Pastor’s house. As I mentioned earlier, he gave us some peaches. He has a small orchard at his house. All his trees were so full of fruit. It was beautiful.

These are only a few of the trees. Grace took lots of pictures. I will try to post more of them tomorrow.

This is a view from his yard. Very pretty. We also ate supper at his house. Almost everything we had was home grown. I love to eat this way. We had hamburgers on the grill, cucumbers, onions and tomatoes from the garden, fresh homemade applesauce, and fresh peaches. Delicious!

The girls and I did not get to can our beets yesterday. As it was raining most of the day, we decided to run a few errands in town instead. Jess had given me some coupons she had for canning jars and lids. We decided to go to Wal-Mart and get these. They are a little cheaper there than there are at our local supermarket. We will be canning the beets today.

The sun is shining here nicely today. Temperatures have cooled down some, thanks to the rain yesterday. Outside temperature is about 80 degrees. This is one of those weeks when things begin to start building up. Much to do. Beans are ready to pick, berries are ready, beets are ready and I think we might have enough tomatoes ripe to make a batch of salsa. I love to can and put away food for my family however when I start getting behind, it is easy for me to allow that to become a stressor in my life. I do not want this to happen. God has given us this bounty and I thank Him for it. When I was growing up, the garden and canning controlled our summers. I do not want that for my girls. I want the garden and all it involves to be enjoyable and fun for my girls. I want to keep a balance. This is hard, as old habits are sometimes difficult to break. Pray that I will do this well-that my girls will have a love for gardening and canning and not see it as just hard work.

Enjoy your day and God bless.

July 28, 2010 1

Spaghetti Sauce

Our spaghetti sauce turned out really good. We got 12 qts from a half bushel of tomatoes. Today we will do the other half bushel. The recipe we used:

Scald and peel half a bushel of tomatoes (we used our food strainer instead), 6 cups chopped onions, 4 chopped green peppers, 1 clove of garlic. Cook for 1 and a half hours, stirring frequently. Add 1 pt crisco oil, 1 cup sugar, 1/2 cup salt, 1 tbsp oregano, 1 tbsp crushed basil leaves, 1 tbsp italian seasoning, 1 tbsp parsley, 5-12 oz cans tomato paste, 4 jalopeno peppers. Cook another 45 min stirring frequently. Put in jars. Heat lids and seals to boiling. Put lids and seals on jars. Cover jars with towel and let sit overnight.

This recipe does not call for processing as the liquid is so hot when you put it into the jars. However, if you are uncomfortable with this method you can process in a hot water bath canner or freeze the sauce.

We better get busy. Lots to do today. We need to get busy on the other spaghetti sauce and on cleaning house. The ladies will come tomorrow for bible study. Take care and God bless.

July 22, 2010 2