Thursday, April 2, 2009

The Things I "used to do"

Before my return to the external workforce I used to clean all my bottles in preparation for jams, preserving whatever, take the labels off, print out new groovy ones to stick on after bottling was done, cut out circles of old fabric to put on the top.

This is what I do now............. I clean the bottles really well I sterilise them and I whack whatever it is I cooked into them they might get a label they won't get a frilly fabric cap and sometime in the future it may be potluck as to whether you are opening a bottle of tomato sauce (as above ) or a chutney or tomato jam.

I am not thrilled with the shortcuts I have to take to get these things I love done, but I am thrilled I turned a five dollar box of tomatoes into eight jars of tomato sauce. Oh I also took the shortcut of not straining it I took out most of the skins and the cloves and just processed the rest a little to make it pourable. (I have done that before because straining it is a pain but this time I am blaming working outside the home 30 hours a week and not laziness - and may continue to do so !!LOL)

I have decided sometimes it is about getting it done, all the frilly bits can wait until you have more time.

daisymum

PS: for this tomato sauce recipe visit my dear friend at The Tin House she uses the same one and she had the time sometime in the past to put hers in her recipe file!!!

2 comments:

Joolz said...

Hi Daisymum

I 've never heard of anyone choking on tomato skin or seeds in chutney. I think you're safe! My mum has never strained her sauce. Yum, looks good.

Cheers - Joolz

Teena said...

Me either, i dont strain it, it reduces down to barely anything when put with mince meat in a sgetti-bog! I also don't strain it or take out skins when doing tomato & onion chutney either, otherwise it just looks like tommy sauce and doesn't give texture on your steak or roast meat sandwich.

I have never put frilly tops on either, just a blank label that then gets "Tom Chutney" or "Spag sauce" written on them, or any other variety I create. Stop stressing, working mums are allowed to take short cuts, you made it yourself so thats better than some working mum's who don't even make it at all!

Lotsa love
xoxoxoxo