The Bargain Tomato Box

In our house we love pasta. I've been making my own tomato pasta sauce for more than a year now. I usually buy about 3 kg of tomato for about $7 or $8 and use a huge jam pan to cook up about 8.5litres (15 pints) of sauce.
A few weeks before Christmas I noticed we were a bit low on sauce but I didn't time to make any more because of all the other end of year activities we needed to do.

On Monday I went to the Coventry Market in Morley and purchased a big black box of Roma tomatoes for $5. Mr W and I had to share carrying it to the car (one handle each). I think there must have been about 10kg (22lb) in the box. On Tuesday I spent 8 hours cooking two batches and ended up with 23 jars of sauce (and a bit to spare which we ate for dinner last night).

I decided to make up another (slightly different recipe using zucchini rather than aubergine) batch on Wednesday to use up the remaining tomatoes. I think there are about 35 jars altogether.

Things I discovered I like about making my own pasta sauce are:
The faint aroma of warm olives when the onions are being sauteed in the olive oil.
The faded scent of garlic that remains on my finger tips even after I have washed them numerous times.
The way our chickens go crazy over the off-cuts of tomato that they get given - this is their favourite treat.
The plopping sound that the thickening sauce makes as the air bubbles surface while simmering.
The way the sauce gloops into the jars as I pour it through the funnel.
The tink sound that the lids make when the vacuum seal pops down when the sauce cools down. It is unexpected because every jar takes a different length of time to seal and I have usually washed up and am relaxing by the time this happens.

I guess I wish we were Italian because the only thing missing is the horde of apron wearing relatives all chattering and helping with a job like this. You know like the sauce making scene from Looking for Alibrandi.

UPDATE: Lilybets commented that the sauce isn't very red and asked what I used in the sauce. I add aubergine (eggplant) and zucchinni so it lightens the colour also I use all the seeds (I think they are traditionally removed but I don't mind them in the sauce) and also I blend the chunky bits if I run out of time and haven't let the sauce simmer for the full four hours stated in the recipe. This breaks up some of the seeds and adds to the lighter colour sometimes. My SIL is going to her Italian neighbours house tomorrow to see how they make sauce... I am a bit jealous but I know she will share all the secrets with me.


Side note:
Week 2 of TAST has been published at Pin-tangle so I am going to read through the information about buttonhole stitching and plan my attack for later in the week (when I stop smelling of garlic).

I was amazed, perhaps more shocked, that my more-than-humble-scratching of fly stitch was selected in the showcase of week 1 due to it being on a ball rather than a flat surface.

Christmas Cherry Jam

I have been fairly absent from my regular stitching activities since before Christmas. I made a bunch of bunting, six embroidered clothing items, a set of four Kanzashi style flowers but I haven't done much temari. Other things keep getting in the way... like bargain cherries.

My SIL purchased a huge box of Cherries for Christmas day. We all knew there would be no way we could eat them all but it was suggested the leftovers could be turned into jam.  Between Christmas and New Year, that is exactly what I did. We ate more than I expected so I added some raspberries that were left over from the Christmas Ice-cream cake too. I just need to remember to share out all the jars now.

The Big One Oh

On Sunday our baby turned 10. I can't believe it, I have no idea where all that time went, of course that is also what my Mum and Grandma say about their babies too.
To celebrate he had a pool party at a nearby aquatic center. For 2 hours 11 boys (and Miss D, Mr M and Mr H) slid down the spiral super slide pipeline, competed for the largest splash at the bombie pool, created a whirl pool, tried to cross the inflated pool maze in the quickest time and then ate huge amounts of snacks to replenish all those lost calories.

His Mohawk is beginning to grow out now, it almost looks better - maybe I am just getting used to it now.

This year he asked for a devil cake that he saw in the AWW Children's Birthday Cake book. It was actually for a number 6 cake but we adapted it a bit and made it into a 10. If you squint really hard it looks ok, Mr W loved it of course. The cake part was a really nice fudgy chocolate recipe from the book.

For the record I don't want to make black or red icing anytime soon... and I did gently mention this to Mr W so he has a whole year to come up with his idea for next year ensuring there is no black or red icing involved.

I bet you are thinking I am a little drama queen-ish about the icing colour but here is the other cake I made for Mr M's birthday which was celebrated just before New Years.

It is supposed to be Pingu. I make the scary little fish from cake offcuts. They remind me of the scariest fish I have ever seen... Orange Roughy. This cake was make with Caramel Apple... Mr M's favourite. Before I made this cake I made test cupcakes to practice making the icing in black. I think we have all consumed more than enough artificial colourings to last out the next decade.

TAST with Sharon B's Pin Tangle

Week 1: Fly stitch.

I am not an embroiderer so I jumped at the opportunity to get on board with this challenge. I have been playing with this stitch on a temari (and mostly it looks pretty awful) but hey it is a new skill I am hoping to acquire so I'm going to keep practising.

I decided to try the fly stitch as an Obi decoration. My plan is to stitch rows toward the pole with each weekly challenge until I fill up the ball.

At first I stitched east west around the equator using several long stitches followed by sections which were more densely packed, but it looked too awful and reminded me of the jacket that Adam Ant used to wear. I unpicked all of it and stitched again with a north south orientation in a plaited style. The negative space looked like little houses all in a row when I was done so I turned the ball upside down and stitched another row.

I was more happy with how they had turned out but there were large empty diamond shapes along the Obi that just didn't look right so I went back and stitched tiny fly stitches in alternating north and south inside the holes. Of course this worked until I got to the last diamond shape and I had the prospect of two fly upright together or two down together at the last fly stitch so instead of that I made a reversed fly stitch (which turned out more like and x).

I think I am also going to practice these TAST challenges on some scrap fabric in a hoop.  I realise that if I am going to 'traditionally' embroider onto the surface of a temari I need to make my thread wrap tension more firm and dense than usual. I will add more tight extra thread layers on the next temari I use.

Today I made...

Actually I am about to make Cherry jam. We had some fruit for breakfast (yummiest peaches I ever ate) and went to Coogee Beach for sandcastles and splashing around fun. The water was cool and dead flat, there was just a gentle breeze blowing and the sun had just the right amount of warmth.

Mr W and DH dug a huge pit and I took a walk along the shore. It was really quiet and peaceful... days like these make me remember just how immensely lucky my life is. We ate pancakes (which we cooked yesterday but we zapped back to life in the microwave) when we got home and now I am going to de-sand myself and get cracking in the kitchen.

I plan to get a little stitching done this afternoon.

Life is good in my little corner of the world! Want me to send you a sunshine?