My Crazy Life as a Farmers Wife

Fresh-Roasted Summer Garden Pasta Sauce

In the beginning, gardening seems like a lot of work. The planting, watering, fertilizing, and endless hours of weeding finally start to pay off, and you get to harvest fresh tomatoes from your own backyard. I like to eat them sliced up with salt and pepper, and we can eat plenty fresh on salads and as toppings on all of our favorite dishes, but let's be honest, there comes a time when you just want to preserve some of that delicious home grown taste for the colder months ahead! This simple recipe is a great option for preserving tomatoes, and it is simple enough that you don't need fancy canning skills to put away some fresh pasta sauce for the winter months to come.

Fresh-Roasted Summer Garden Pasta Sauce

Please note that because this recipe is meant to use up extra garden tomatoes, the amounts are not exact. Try not to stress about how much of each item you need to add. I've made this sauce many times without an exact recipe, and it has always turned out great! It is simply a guideline for how to make a delicious sauce using what you harvest from your garden. Here is what you will need:
-ripe garden tomatoes (I like to pick mine and let them ripen for a few days on the kitchen counter)
-onions (red, white, or yellow...they are all delicious!)
-garlic cloves
-fresh herbs such as basil, oregano, rosemary, parsley etc.
-salt and pepper
-garlic powder
-olive oil
-balsamic vinegar
-canned tomato paste

Line a large baking dish with foil. Preheat over to 450 degrees. Remove stems from tomatoes and quarter. Fill baking dish with quartered tomatoes. Remover paper skin from onions and chop off the ends. Quarter smaller onions, or chop larger onions into smaller sections. Sprinkle over tomatoes. Peel garlic cloves and slice in half, sprinkle over tomatoes and onions. Spread herbs over the top and season well with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and any other dry herbs you might like to add. Drizzle the entire pan with olive oil. Place in oven and allow to roast until the the tops of the vegetables blacken. Remove from oven and allow to cool for about 20 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, lift roasted vegetables from the pan into a food processor or blender, leaving the liquid in the pan. Add a few teaspoons of balsamic vinegar and enough tomato paste to help reach desired thickness. Taste your sauce and see if it needs any further seasoning. If you can resist eating it all straight from the blender with a spoon, you can use the fresh sauce right away (it's great on pasta, veggies, and in lasagna), or you can mix in a tablespoon of lemon juice and portion the sauce into freezer bags and freeze for later use.

My Garden 2014

I've been snapping garden photos all summer long...hoping to share many blog posts and all of these photos, but summer has come and gone. It looks like I'm doing a single gardening post with TONS of photos from the whole summer. I can't explain how much I love gardening...it is such an enjoyable and useful hobby. I'm ready for a break by fall, and my garden is currently cleaned out and tilled for the winter, but looking back at all of these photos already makes me miss it's beauty and produce. But of course, I'm glad to have a break from all of the weeding, harvesting, and canning for a few months.

David and I built a new fence around my garden this year. It's very simple, but I love it. We left one end of the fence so that it can be taken down. There are perks being married to a farmer...he has tractors, and it's so much easier to simply bring in the tractor and till up all of the ground. I will admit that my garden is so beautiful and flourishes so well because of David. He works the soil so nicely for me, and he always fertilizes it well in the spring and fall. All winter, we clean out the chicken coop and spread the straw and chicken poop on the garden. In the spring, it is tilled in to make the most beautiful soil (the soil here is amazing soil to begin with). During the summer, he pumps fertilizer through the sprinklers with the same system he uses to fertilize his fields here by our house. He also helps me start almost all of our plants from seed in our greenhouse. We enjoy trying all types and varieties of flowers and veggies, and experimenting with new things. All of this helps contribute to a beautiful garden.

I like to think that a garden provides a perfect opportunity for kids to learn to work. How many times do people think about planting a garden, and get so excited about it...putting lots of time, money, and work into it, only to get lazy mid season and let it get taken over by weeds, and let the produce go to waste? I've tried really hard to have my kids be involved in the whole process, teaching them to complete the process from start to finish (which includes preserving what we can't eat so it doesn't go to waste). It is a LOT of work, but like any chore, it is not so hard when you work together, and everyone does their share. I feel I'm especially lucky to raise my kids on a farm, because they find pleny of opportunities to learn about work. When kids learn about work, it makes play that much more fun, and I know that my kids get plenty of work and fun...and I'm proud that they know more about working than most kids their age. My garden plays a big role in that :)

This is my new fence...David built me a nice little gate at both ends of the garden. The gate has a double sided hinge so it swings both ways. This is especially nice when you're carrying loads of produce out of the garden. We put up a smaller netted fencing to help keep out all of our domestic rabbits that we've let go over the years...they've had lots of babies, and are thriving here on our farm. They like to munch on my garden, so I have to keep a fence up, but I love watching them hop around our farm. We staked a cattle pannel into an arch shape, and I love to plant Scarlet Runner Beans along the bottom of both sides...they cover the arch in no time, and I think it's beatiful.

Up on the hill behing our garden, we grow a huge sweet corn patch, pumpkin patch, and melon patch. 

I like to incorporate lots of flowers into my garden. Besides being beautiful, they fill up any open areas and help keep out weeds. We like to cut them and make flower arrangements in our home all summer long. I always plant the seeds straight into my garden...especially zinnias, cosmos, and sunflowers. One of my favorite places to order bulk flower seeds is Swallowtail Seeds. It is much cheaper than buying all of those mini packets at the store.

The chickens and goat get plenty of fresh produce and greenery in the summer...

Our orchard is situated right next to the garden, and we get to enjoy apples, peaches, pears, plums, and apricots.

 

Many people have asked me what type of tomatoes I grown. The answer is not simple. I grow so many varieties...a mix of  many types. I love the simplicty and short growing time of Early Girls, but I love big beautiful heirloom tomatoes that are juicy and big. I like many of the goliath and beefsteak varieties as well, because I usually preserve about 100-115 cans of stewed tomatoes each year, and these big tomatoes help my yields add up. The Wild Boar Solar Flare was a new favorite this year. When it comes to cherry tomatoes, my favorites are Super Sweet 100's, Sun Sugar, and some new Artisan varieties we tried this year. We like having big variety so that they are ripening all summer. We have had great luck ordering most of tomato varieties from Totally Tomatoes. 

I grow a decent sized pumpkin patch and order most of my seeds from Rupp Seeds. I enjoy growing many varieties of gourds and squash as well.

Canning & Preserving Recap 2014

 I think the photos speak for themselves :) It was a busy year...full of work...but I am so grateful for the simple blessing of being able to grow, eat, and preserve our own food, but most of all, I'm thankful for those who help make my work enjoyable, and for a beautiful family to share beautiful food with.