Weekend in Photos

A ridiculous and gorgeous birthday party for my bff and love of my life, Amy; a perfect day outside planting trees at Reecer Creek in Ellensburg with some of my favorite people; and thawing my stash of summer tomatoes for a big beautiful pot of tomato basil simmer sauce. Yes, I thawed them on the floor next to my radiator. Classy!

How was your weekend?

Link Love!

- The photos on Honey and Jam alone are enough to completely suck you in- and paired with the recipes her blog is completely irresistible. This recipe for Tomato Cobbler is a beautiful savory take on a traditional fruit cobbler that would be the perfect use for gorgeous summer tomatoes.

- The comments on this recipe had me laughing. Earlier today Michael tweeted "See the comments; what do y'all think, too far or am I allowed a little sap once in awhile?" And I guess the funny part is that I absolutely loved his writing in this post. Peach and Sour Cream Buckle is a simple recipe with just the right amount of mush. I love it.

- I have no idea how I managed to wait so long to link to this recipe. Grits with Corn, Goat Cheese, and Roasted Tomatoes from The Kitchn was one of those recipes that I made the same day that I discovered it. It tastes like eating summer. I used a beautiful vegetable ash chevre in mine and kind of wanted to cry it was so good. Please make this.

- Another recipe from The Kitchn that I should have shared some time ago- Velvety Broccoli and Feta Pasta has been a major stand-by for me the past few months. I generally end up eating half of the pesto out of my food processor bowl with a fork and my fingers. No shame.

What have you been loving lately?

Tomato-Basil Simmer Sauce Canning Extravaganza!

Yesterday, after a bit of calling around- Amy and I found what is probably one of the best deals on local tomatoes in Seattle.  We paid $27 for a 24 pound box of beautiful ripe lovelies from Top Banana here in Ballard.  I called a nearby U-pick farm, who was selling theirs for nearly $4 a pound!  Nonsense!

 

 

We had expected to end up with 12 pint jars full of our beautiful sauce- but the recipe we used somehow led us astray.  It may have been because we seeded our tomatoes, but the proportions were a bit out of whack.  However- we ended up with 6 jars of absolutely decadent, rich, garlicy sauce, and couldn't have been any more pleased.

The recipe that we used is here, and I absolutely recommend it.  We added a splash of red wine, three whole heads of roasted garlic (for our doubled recipe), herbs de provence, plus extra salt and lots of pepper.  I love bold flavors, and the freshness of the tomatoes and the basil still cut through perfectly.  

We started off by peeling the tomatoes:

 This was serious business.  Go ahead and ignore my sink full of dirty dishes.

Can we take a quick second and admire my gorgeous hand thrown bowls?  If you've ever been to my apartment for more than 5 minutes you probably already know all about them.  They were each under $4 and I really like to talk about them.   

From there: garlic was roasted, basil was diced, and pureed tomatoes and spices were added to the biggest pot I could find.

After the sauce had cooked down for quite some time- we were ready to get seriously serious.  Seriously though.

Once the garlic and basil were added to the sauce- we pulled it off the heat, added a tablespoon of bottled lemon juice to each of our warm, sterilized jars, and got down to business.

The fun and exciting action shots of me ladling sauce into jars all turned out grainy and dark!  The horror!

Once filled they went into a hot water bath for 35 long and excruciating minutes (I don't have/use a canning rack so I'm always a little nervous about breaking jars or killing someone with botulism- no big deal!)

They came out perfectly- all sealed up within seconds of coming out of the pot, and Matao and I busted one of them open for dinner tonight and about died from the goodness (not botulism).  Amy and I are planning on picking up another box of tomatoes for salsa, and maybe another round of tomato sauce.  I'd love to do some small jars to share.