I Hope There's Chili Sauce in Heaven

Tonight I cleaned the now-ripe tomatoes from the window sill, took the previously washed tomatoes out of the refrigerator, and cored, peeled, and diced them for--you guessed it--another batch of freezer chili sauce! (The recipe for this scrumptious sauce is provided in my previous chili sauce post.)

I took a picture of the diced tomatoes before I added any of the other ingredients. I wanted to show the variations in the coloring from the different heirloom varieties that combine to make this sauce. I like knowing that my chili sauce is special, created from tomatoes that have been grown for years, perhaps even centuries, the seeds passed from one farmer to another. Who knows how old some of these varieties are! The combined flavors make the chili sauce different every time, which adds to its specialness.

After adding the remaining ingredients, I brought the mixture to a boil at about 8:30 p.m., which means I'll be periodically stirring to keep the sauce from burning on the bottom (although the nonstick surface of the pan is a tremendous boon in that regard). That means I'll be up until about 11:30 this evening stirring chili sauce, but oh my, it is definitely worth it! I did take a nap today, so I'm good to go.

The pungent smell, a mixture of cider vinegar, tomatoes, and the sweet odors of cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, ginger, and more, are already wafting in from the kitchen as I write this, and I think Heaven can only be heaven if there's chili sauce.

So Many Tomatoes, So Little Time...

Today is "do something with all these veggies that are sitting out on the counters, the freezer, the table, and in baskets" day. It would be nice to eat at the table without having to shove zucchini or other vegetables to the side, and we haven't been able to get into our chest freezer for some time now--and I will definitely need to to move things from the refrigerator's freezer into the chest freezer this evening. I did manage to remove the rotting cucumbers from the table and haul them out to the compost bin. I just can't keep up with the produce right now! Next year, I'll definitely cut down on the number of zucchini plants I put in, and perhaps even reduce the number of cucumber plants. I'm happy with the number of tomato plants. At least for now.

After throwing out the rotten cukes and washing the rest, I decided to start my preserving endeavors with the tomatoes. I skinned them and made a double batch of tomato sauce--and this time, left the seeds in since I discovered they are actually good for you (high in protein). I did dice up some of the smaller Best Boy, since they seem to be a little drier than the Beefsteak tomatoes. I ended up with 8 1/2 pints of tomato sauce and 2 half-pints of diced tomatoes.

I also did a bit more harvesting, ending up with 2 more zucchini and 6 more cucumbers. More of the heirlooms were pickable this time, and I managed to scavenge 3 Brandywine, 1 Peach Tom, 4 Sungold Select, 1 Orange Banana, and 2 Costoluto Genovese. In addition, I harvested 6 more Best Boy, 7 Beefsteak, and 115 sun sugar tomatoes. I also harvested a beautiful blushing yellow tomato, but I'm not sure what kind it is. It appeared to be growing on a sun sugar plant, but it is very difficult to tell because many of the branches of the plants are tangled due to the severe rain storms we had. It is hard to untangle them or move them enough to follow them to the right plant for fear of breaking the branches. For now, I'm listing it as a "Not Sure" tomato; hopefully I'll get to harvest another one that is easier to track.

TOTAL PRODUCE COUNT TO DATE:
Zucchini: 105
Cucumbers: 175
White Onions: 1
Yellow Onions: 2
Sun Sugar Tomatoes: 801
Beefsteak Tomatoes: 46
Best Boy Tomatoes: 41
Cosmonaut Volkov Tomatoes: 1
Sungold Select Tomatoes: 7
Peach Tom: 2
Brandywine Tomatoes: 3
Orange Banana Tomatoes: 1
Costoluto Genovese Tomatoes: 2
Not sure Tomatoes: 1
Herbs: cilantro, mint, dill