Vegging Out

Today was kiddo's 1st day of school.  Yesterday, I pretty much let her do whatever she wanted.  I offered to go play out and about but mostly she wanted to watch TV and play with her dolls.  I'm okay with that.  I think that sometimes you just need a day to veg out.  

 I veg'ed out too.  I have been roasting and freezing tomatos all summer.  The freezer basket was getting full.  On top of that, my Mother-in-Law brought tomatos from the Farmer's Grandfather.  I like that the sauce will have a few varieties of tomatos.  I think it adds some depth of flavor.  I also like that with Grandpa's tomatos it's like a family sauce.  In the end I had A LOT of tomatos.  They filled 2 stockpots.  It took forever to run them all through the food mill.  Do they make electronic food mills?  We cranked on and off for an hour or so until they had all been through.  They filled the big stock pot to within 2 inches of the brim.

The next step is to let the whole thing simmer down 'till it is reduced by 1/3 to 1/2 volume.  This is where I cheated.  I let it simmer and steam until it was reduced by a few inches.  Then, I added 4 cans of tomato paste.  Blasphamy, I know.  The paste thickens the sauce.  I get more sauce and don't have to wait until 9 pm to can.  A trick in the canning sauce is to line up all of your jars and add the lemon juice to all of them at once.  That way, you do not need to rack your brain trying to remeber if you added it or not.  It's in there.  I got 11 quarts.  That is the most ever!  I am a happy camper.

I did some decluttering too.  Lying on the basement floor in front of the canning shelf was the cardboard tray that had been under a litter box.  When Ella died, we consolodated the boxes.  Somehow that tray never got tossed.  It was like it had become a fixture and I no longer saw it.  I decided that the focus of the day would be the basement floor.  With the monster project of the sauce going on upstairs, I wanted something quick and simple.  How bad could it be?

We live in filth.  Well not really, but it was bad enough.  There was more stuff than I thought there would be.  Stuff down there feels damp and dirty.  Anyway, the tray is gone, as are some other misc boxes and random objects.  You know how metal coffee cans are so great for storing stuff?  I found 7 empty ones that I had taken down there just in case.  Several were a rusty and cob-webby.  Ick.  They are now in the recyling bin.  Also in the bin is an empty bottle of laundry detergent that I found under the table that lives next to the washer.  We have been making our own laundry soap for the past 2+ years so who knows how long that bottle has been there?  There were 5 stray socks hiding under there as well.  The best things I found were about $2.30 in loose change and an escapee wool dryer ball.