Tomatoes and Bread

*Posted on original blog on 10/10/10

Well, the tomato sauce is made. It was a fairly quick process that took place on Saturday.  I used twelve pounds of beautiful roma tomatoes purchased at Madison's in Findlay Market.  One of the tasks at hand to prepare the tomatoes was to concasse tomatoes.  For those of you unfamiliar with that term, it simply means to peel and deseed the fruit.  Let me tell you, this is one of my very LEAST favorite things to do in the kitchen. So off I went, carving an X into the bottom of the tomatoes, blanching them for 30 seconds, transferring them to an ice bath, and then peel, peel, peel.  When I got to the part of deseeding I had had enough!  Peeling is a must, deseeding....well, I don't mind the seeds.  I pulled my trusty wand mixer out and went to work crushing and pureeing those suckers!  The color was absolutely amazing!  When it was all said and done I had a beautiful scarlet red sauce on my hands.  Oh the beauty of a freshly made tomato sauce.  Sauteed up some garlic and onions, added that to the sauce, and let it reduce by 1/3.  Again my wand mixer didn't let me down.  The onions and garlic disappeared with the press of a button!

Now to get this stuff canned!  I packed the kids into the car and headed to purchase the rest of the canning supplies.  By the time we got back it was too late to start canning.....guess it will wait till Monday!

It's football sunday....now normally for me this is a mini holiday all on it's own, but the kitchen is calling me!  Hi-ho hi-ho it's off to bake bread I go.  Last time I made bread it turned out pretty well considering I hadn't made homemade bread in thirteen years.  This time I modified a touch.  One, I followed the instructions completely this time....haha!  Two, I replaced the oil with applesauce this time.  Cut 50 calories and a gram of fat off, so we will see how this turns out.  I'm patiently waiting for the bread to rise as we speak!  The Bengals are winning, but irritating me none the less.....I'll be back in a day or two to report on the saga of the bread baking!!!!

Guten Appetit! (p.s.  we are going to learn "Enjoy your meal" in several languages....there will be a quiz!)