When Life Gives You Tomatoes. . . .

One of the Farmer's Market vendors had a few bushels of San Marzano tomatoes for $10 last week. I couldn't resist. Not quite grown in Italy, so no "EU DOP", but grown locally somewhere in mid-Michigan is good enough for me. The best use for a San Marzano is as a sauce tomato and especially as a sauce for pizza. So I got out the canning equipment and got to work. 4 hours of washing, chopping, milling (food mill, I highly recommend!) and cooking later, I had 12 pints of canned tomatoes (6 of sauce, 6 of diced tomatoes for winter soup). The sauce is just tomatoes, salt and a little lemon juice (for safety in canning) cooked down about an hour to just the right thickness. We tasted and pretty much wanted to eat it right then & there. Delicious! Our basement is filling up with canned/jarred food - it's actually kind of funny. My next project might be pickles - either that or apple butter.

BTW, it's October 6th and about 88 degrees here . . .but the trees are starting to change color and we are seeing gourds, pumpkins and apples everywhere at the market so I think it's safe to say that fall has arrived!