Weekend doings

I waxed the cheese on Friday. It is looking more and more like a longhorn of colby, but it still needs to age for 3 weeks. I'm getting a bit anxious to try it :)

I read last spring in Mother Earth News that you can core tomatoes and then freeze them until you have time to make tomato sauce. Well, I froze about 10 pounds of them last summer—nice looking, bright red romas. They have been waiting patiently all winter for me to get to them. About a month or so ago, I came across a good tomato sauce recipe and tried 3 pounds of them with it. It was excellent, but needed a bit of modification. Sunday was the day for it.

I cooked up the remaining 7 pounds or so and canned them. It made a dozen 12 ounce jelly jars worth. We use about 10 ounces of tomato sauce on our pizza, which is too much for a half-pint, but we would have some left over with a pint jar. The 12 ounce jelly jar is about perfect, after you allow for headspace. It was fun pulling the jars out of the water and hearing them pop as they sealed. The level of water on the lid of each jar made each of them give off a different note as they sealed. I couldn't believe how fast they sealed; all of them were sealed in about 45 seconds, not the normal 5-10 minutes that you get in the summer.

From that same cookbook, I made something called Snow Pudding yesterday. It is supposed to look totally white, but when you only have unrefined sugar, that is pretty difficult :) Debbie didn't think it would be very good, but I thought it might be, so I made it. Basically, it is just lemon gelatin with egg white folded in served with a light vanilla custard over the top. It turned out very well. I think I'll make it again, but add more lemon juice next time.

I was hoping to get the compost bin built, but the weather didn't cooperate with me. Maybe later...