Home 2020

I like being efficient, as my dad always called it  smart, laziness. There is really no good way to peel tomatoes -- yes, you can do that hot water bath thing -- but it is messy and time consuming. I am here to tell you what the professionals on Food Network say all the time -- BUY A FOOD MILL.  It has made my harvests so much easier.  It is the best method I've tried and I was lucky and only paid 5 bucks for mine at a garage sale. Because I'm basically lazy (or efficient if you prefer) I rarely do all my at the same time.  Instead of spending all day in the kitchen, I bring in whatever is ripe, save them up until  I get 15 or 20 nice tomatoes and then I make sauce.  Sometimes plain, sometimes Marinara, and sometimes a hot chili sauce to use in my chili this winter.  I  wash and quarter them and cook them skins and all. At this point just cook them until they are tender,  the skins have come off by themselves in about 15 to 30 minutes. Turn off the heat to cool.  When sauce is cool enough I use my food mill and snip, snap,  all of the skins and 99% of the seeds are in the top of the food mill and a beautiful sauce is filtered through the mill. At this point you can either freeze the sauce plain or reheat and use your favorite canning recipe.  Sometimes when I don't have time, I throw the batch in the fridge and the next day fancy it up with herbs, a little white wine, garlic or whatever inspires me that day.  If adding herbs or other goodies simmer the sauce for about an hour to deepen...