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Saturday, Sept. 07, 2002 - 10:56 p.m. I cooked up a batch of tomato sauce today. Maybe a better description would be pasta sauce. I don�t use much of my tomato crop for this pursuit, mainly because I do such a crummy job at making pasta sauce. Yeah, I make a decent salsa. I put up tons of it (100-150 pints a year, to be more precise) , and it all gets eaten up or passed out before the next crop rolls in each summer. In comparison, I might make 1 or 2 batches of pasta sauce a year. We love tomato sauce here, but I don�t make much of it for several reasons (looks like time for another enumerated list, eh?): 1.Pasta sauce has a low enough ph that it needs to be canned in a pressure canner. Since I don�t can in anything but a water-bath canner, that means I can only freeze my finished product. Frozen pasta sauce just isn�t the same as bottled. I don�t want to use a pressure canner. Too much work, too many chances to make a batch of botulism, and most things canned using this method are very inexpensive to buy at the store anyway (think corn and green beans). So, I don�t waste valuable freezer space for something that isn�t far superior to a store-bought product in the first place. 2.That would be reason number 2 mentioned in the last line up above. There are so many fine bottled pasta sauces out there now, and they are so reasonably priced that it makes more sense to use the tomato crop for better uses. Bertolli� and Classico� both make excellent pasta toppers for around $2.00 a bottle, and they don�t require hours of watching a pot simmer on the stove. 3.In the amount of time it takes to cook a batch of pasta sauce down to the right consistency (about � of the original volume is about right), I can prepare and process a batch of salsa, clean up the mess from making said salsa, have time left over to write another one of these rambling entries for my D-land page, and maybe time enough to catch up on my fav�s entries, too. That said, I decided to make a pot of the homemade sauce today anyway. I planned on watching the Illini play this morning while Lease did a little housework and made herself ready for errand running anyway. Since my chores were all caught up (sounds kinda hick-ish to say chores, but that�s what I call them. I don�t have to slop the hogs or haul water up from the creek or anything, but you know what I mean), I figured I had the time for a little experimenting. I picked all of my plum tomatoes, and tossed in enough Brandywine and Miracle Sweets to fill my stockpot to the 6-quart line with pureed tomatoes. This was after I saut�ed about 2 cups of white Spanish onions with 5 or 6 big cloves of my strong variety of garlic and 2 small (very) hot peppers from the Tri-fetti bush. I mixed all these ingredients thoroughly, and then added about � cup of fresh-picked and chopped basil, oregano, and garlic chives. A little brown sugar, a couple of tablespoons of dried Italian seasoning, and fresh ground pepper completed the mix. This was all mixed up by 10:30, a full thirty minutes before kickoff for the football game. The Illini could have won today, but just like last week, they found ways to fuck it up again. It�s gonna be a long season in Collegetown . I have tickets to the game next week against Arkansas State. They should be favored by at least 21 points against this perennially week team. They will probably find a way to screw that game up, too. Oh yeah, I was telling you about the pasta sauce, wasn�t I?
Codeman and I had a lot of fun watching our teams last year. So far this year, the Illini are 0-2, Codeman�s high school team (that almost made it to the state finals last season) is 0-2 after loosing to Peoria Woodruff Friday 12-8 (his school beat that team last year 52-6). The Bears will probably lay an egg tomorrow against the Vikings (the Bears are favored by 4 � points. Ha!) Oh yeah, I was telling you about the pasta sauce, wasn�t I? Sorry about that. The pasta sauce: I stirred the pot about every 5 minutes. That was about how often the Illini screwed up, and it gave me a good excuse to leave the t.v. After 3 hours, the liquid had evaporated enough to reduce the volume by the desired 50%. I then put the boat motor (as Emeril calls it) into the pot and hit the trigger until the sauce actually looked like a tomato sauce. How did it turn out? It tastes like summer to me. Lease wants to have poured over thin spaghetti next week for a quick supper. I think I can handle that���� The chick flick? Tonight, Lease and I watched �Serendipity� with John Cusack. Good movie. There was a decent plot (the holes where there, but didn�t deter our enjoyment) , plenty of twist and turns along the way, and enough humor to keep the male member of the audience interested. Eugene Levy was very funny as a department store clerk who helps Cusack look for the �one day� love he lost. Hey, man cannot live on action flicks alone���.
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