Tomato Sauce

One of two giant bowls of Romas!

The weekends have been busy in my house in August!  I finally got around to canning my Romas a couple of weekends ago - something that I have been dreading due to the hot weather.  But it was time - far too many tomatoes around that I didn't want to go to waste.  And conveniently my local grocer had 25lb boxes of Romas on sale for $7 this week so I could supplement my own crop (which was about half the size previous years).

I have been looking into getting a food mill for a while.  I didn't know anyone that I could borrow one from to try out, and when I asked on facebook I only got a single reply!  It just happened that our plans changed Saturday and I ended up at a friends family farmhouse which they are currently trying to sell.  I mentioned that I if they found an old food mill that they were getting rid of that I would gladly take it off their hands.  Surprisingly, they said they likely had a few!

Making use of his muscles! 

After a little bit of searching, Ann found a really old hand strainer cone - and although they are neat I think it would have taken me forever to do it that way.  In the end they couldn't find the extra one they thought they had, but Ann did lend me her own Victorio model 200.  I definitely went home a happy girl, knowing that I wouldn't have to blanch and peel all those tomatoes by hand!

I have to say I was very impressed - the food mill looked very similar to my spritz cookie maker, but with a strainer on the end instead of a cookie shape.  It was good and solid too!  Graeme even got in on the action, grinding through more than half the tomatoes for me!  My only issue with this model is that my counters are a bit high for me to use it comfortably.  But that isn't a problem with Graeme around - he was happy to be included in the sauce making!

Now that I know I like this model I will have to keep an eye out for it.  They are available used, but Victorio also sells an updated version - model 250.   Model 250 has a few more plastic parts than its predecessor, but still looks pretty solid to me.  They also sell a motor attachment if I ever don't have the "muscle" around to help me, as well as a smaller berry strainer to remove seeds, and a larger pumpkin screen.  I personally wouldn't use either of those screens, but it is nice to know that the option is there should I ever need it.

In the end I put up 9 quarts of sauce (on top of 5 quarts of non-Romas that I threw directly into the freezer for a cool fall day).  I still have abort 10 lbs of Romas left, which I will likely be making into roasted tomato sauce now that the weather has cooled down.

I am happy that my freezer and pantry are both starting to look full.  It means the end of preserving and the start of enjoying all these canned goodies!