Vanilla Chai Oatmeal

This morning I chose as my tea flavor of the day, Vanilla Bean Chai.  It's warm and robust with flavor, and no caffeine.  It's made by my new friend Michelle at Blooming with Joy Tea and contains  South African Rooibos, vanilla, ginger, cardamom, cloves, and cinnamon pieces. (If you click over and decide to buy something, I get a little bit for referring you.)

As is my habit, I was getting ready to brew a second mug of tea from the once used leaves when I realized that this tea flavor would work wonderfully as the cooking water for the pear oatmeal I was planning to make for breakfast.  Let me tell ya, this was no ordinary oatmeal!

My oldest son, who pretty much loves anything I prepare, but doesn't really like oatmeal, pronounced it to be good.  In this scenario, that says a lot.  My youngest son loves oatmeal and almost always wants seconds, this time seconds was a bigger portion than firsts.  I enjoyed the deep flavor the tea imparted, and the texture contrast between the pears and the oatmeal.  If you want to try this at home, please do!

Vaniila Bean Chai Oatmeal

Makes 4-6 servings

1 cup already been brewed once Vanilla Bean Chai Tea
3 cups water
3 cups organic oats (not quick cook)
2 firm, ripe pears, any variety (I had Bartlett, so that's what I used)
Approximately 1/4 cup sweetener of your choice
Butter

1. Bring tea and water to a boil.
2. Stir in oats and reduce heat to medium (we like our oatmeal thick).
3. Set timer for 3 minutes and dice pears into bite sized pieces.
4. Turn off heat when timer goes off, but leave pot on burner (I have an electric stove, if you use gas, leave the heat on for 5 minutes).
5. Stir in 1/4 cup organic evaporated cane juice and the pears.
6. Scoop into serving bowls and top with a bit of butter.

That's it!  Enjoy!

PS, if you like the tea pot in the picture, you can get one at Blooming With Joy Tea.  It has a handy little infuser that fits right into the pot for brewing loose leaf teas.

Produce

Wow-my last post was in March!  Yes, I've been busy trying to settle in to our new home.  I had planned to do before and after pictures to share, but I couldn't find the camera.  When I did, it needed batteries, and well...they were at the old house still.  There's still a lot to be done, so maybe I'll still have a chance for some of the projects, but for now I wanted to share the bounty in our kitchen right now.

We got our first CSA share last Wednesday.  There's turnips, beets, spring onions, chard, two kinds of kale, lettuce, cilantro and basil.  Reading it, that doesn't sound like much, but it filled more than half of a large sized ice chest.  I had to rearrange the contents of the fridge to get it to fit!

We already had peaches, apricots, Brussels sprouts, beets, carrots, purple cabbage and a variety of greens from a U-pick farm we visited a few weeks ago.  My son has been eating the apricots now that they're in the fruit drawer instead of the paper bag they came in, on a higher shelf in the fridge.  He'll also eat the peaches if I'll keep some in the house (we have a 2nd fridge outside to hold milk and eggs).

In addition to all of that we're members of a produce rescue program that provides up to 60 pounds of produce weekly.  There's tomatoes, yellow squash, zucchini, cucumbers, grapefruit, peppers (hot and sweet), and melons.

Then my wonderful husband brought home baskets of strawberries and blackberries from a produce market in the Big City.  He's going to make pies for a gathering we're going to this week.  Don't forget the mulberry tree that's going crazy with fruit.  Or the food co-op where I buy frozen berries once a month, along with a supply of onions and potatoes, celery and oranges when the price is good.  I even bought a coconut last month.  Hubby has also made friends with the clerk at Circle K who gives him bags of overripe bananas every week.

If you have ideas for using it up, please share!  I've got a pot of this simmering in the slow cooker right now.


I also made kale chips, a turnip green frittata, marinated tomato salad and have a perpetual garden salad bowl in the fridge.

Stephanie at Keeper of the Home is hosting an Eat From the Pantry challenge.  I think I need to join!

Limeade

We made some today.  Cranberry limeade too.  It was easy.  It's yummy!  1 qt is already gone.  Limes are on sale again.  Hmmm.  Here's what we did if you're interested:

• juiced all the limes we had in the juicer-cut into quarters first, but tossed in peel and all
• made a simple syrup of 1/2 cup evaporated cane juice to 1 cup water-I think I ended up doing this 3 times
• tossed 1 cup of cranberries into the first batch of syrup-they were frozen and that was a quick way to thaw, as well as cool the syrup
• ran the cranberry & syrup mixture in blender to chop them up

We ended up with about 3 cups of lime juice.  From that I made 2 qts of limeade by adding about a cup of juice, a cup of syrup and 2 cups of water to quart jars.

In another quart jar I put about 1 1/2 cups of the cranberry mixture and 1 cup of syrup with the rest filled with water.

I still have a full quart of cranberry limeade concentrate to use for more or to flavor club soda.  I love bubbly drinks and have grown used to straight club soda, but I sure enjoy it more with flavor!  Tonight we polished off a qt of the limeade mixing it with club soda.

This would have made a great festive punch for a Christmas party-a bowl of sparkling limeade (or even a pretty glass pitcher) with chopped cranberries floating in it.

Repurposed Dish Soap

I have about 2 or 3 cups of ultra concentrated dish soap that in addition to being hard to rinse thoroughly, the scent is so strong I'm afraid it would flavor our food if used to actually wash dishes!  I don't want to just throw it away, and our hand soap dispenser in the bathroom is empty, so I searched for a recipe to make hand soap.  The ones I saw started with a bar of soap-I used 1 tablespoon of this in its place.  I added 1 teaspoon of glycerin and about 20 drops each of lemon and orange essential oil.  I mixed it with 6 cups of water and poured it into two dispensers.  I still have a quart of it left.  Eight tablespoons in a cup-is that right?  Or is it 16?  Bare minimum I have enough of this to make 768 ounces of soap!  That's six gallons!  Hmm, might have to see about selling it at the farmer's market...what do you think about that?

Update, as of 9PM the same day.  Even with just 1 tablespoon in 6 cups of water it's WAY too strong still.  The overwhelming scent isn't diluted or masked.  Guess I'll just see if a friend wants the soap!

Spinach Salad with Wasabi Dressing

I made this for dinner last night, with a couple of tweaks.  I found it thru a list from TipNut.com with ideas for 20 different spinach salads.  I bookmarked a number of them to try out this spring.

I added a variety of greens, plus tomatoes, but left off the sesame seeds.  We don't use them in other recipes and I didn't want to buy some just for this.  It made a good dinner.

Parmesan Squash Cakes

I don't recall where I found this recipe.  Given that it's typed out on half a sheet of paper, my guess is I picked it up at the Farmer's market last summer.  I wouldn't bother cutting the paper, so it's not something I found online and printed.  I'll copy it here, with my additions/suggestions in purple.

1 large egg (I used 2)
2/3 cup finely chopped sweet onion (I didn't have that much, but it was plenty-maybe 1/3 cup)
1 T finely chopped flat leaf parsley (I used dried)
1/4 t salt (I didn't measure, just added)
1/4 t pepper (same here)
2 cups shredded summer squash, 2-3 medium (I used 3 that I considered small and ended up with way more than 4 cakes, as the recipe indicates)
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese (once again, I didn't measure, I had a small chunk and used it all)
1 T extra virgin olive oil (I needed more)

1. Preheat oven to 400°F
2. Beat egg in large bowl-I started with one, it wasn't enough for the amount of squash I had.  Stir in onion, parsley, salt and pepper.
3. Place shredded squash in clean kitchen towel and gather up ends and twist to squeeze out as much water as possible.  I let my son do this part, only I told him to simply press on the towel to get the water out.  I didn't explain that the goal was to squeeze out water, so he felt the job was done when he had flattened out the mound.  I should have checked.
4. Add the squash and cheese to the bowl, stir to combine.  This is where I realized I needed another egg, so beat one and added.
5. Heat oil in large skillet over medium heat.  Pack a 1/3 cup measuring cup with the mixture and unmold into the pan.  Gently pat it down to form a 3 inch cake.  Repeat, making 4 cakes.  I now see the flaw in the recipe.  If you start with 2 cups of squash, and just use 1/3 cup scoops, you will get 6, not 4.  I got 9, so I guess I had more than 2 cups of squash!
6. Cook until brown and crispy on the bottom, 3-4 minutes, then gently turn over and transfer pan to oven.  Bake for 10 minutes and serve immediately.  I don't have a skillet that can go into the oven, so I oiled a cookie sheet and transferred them to that.  As the water didn't all get squeezed out, they kinda fell apart, but they tasted good!

This post is part of Real Food Wednesday at Kelly the Kitchen Kop's Blog.

Tuna Quesadillas

The other day I wrote about making a Mexican spiced version of tuna salad.  Tonight we're having it on quesadillas.  Here's how I made them:

To a dollop of mayo I added 1/4 tsp each of cumin, onion powder and dried cilantro leaves, stirring to combine.  I then added 2 5oz cans of drained tuna and mixed well.  I made it less moist than if I were making tuna salad-just enough mayo to hold it together.

I then assembled the quesadallas with a layer of tuna, freshly chopped green onion and shredded colby jack cheese and toasted in the toaster oven until the cheese was melted.  That'd be dark toast on mine.  We ate them with salsa, but sour cream, guacamole or sliced avocado would be wonderful too.  They're kind of like tuna melts with a twist!

Weekly Wrap Up Feb 19th

I just finished reading a story that has disappointed me.  The Dervaes Family was awarded a trademark for the term Urban Homestead (and others).  Click the link to see more about it.  I'm headed to their site now to cancel my subscription.

Goober Gus caught whatever Tony had last week, but I'm happy to report that he fought it off much better.  He slept most of yesterday (oh wow, was that ever nice!) and is chipper and chatty today.  We started on the elderberry lozenges as soon as Tony started feeling bad, and I think that's what helped Gus to fight it off so quickly.  When we ran out of the lozenges, we made our own syrup from Herbal Nurturing. 

It's raining in AZ!  We've had about an inch of rain fall since the wee hours of the morning, which will hopefully give the grass a head start on growing, which means less money spent on hay!  It's been an indoor day except for the short time it stopped raining and we milked the goats.  Cream is ready to be milked, and she's got a great temperament for a milk goat, but she's holding back her milk.  We brought Spice up to the milkstand with her today but she still didn't let down.  I'll just keep trying!

For dessert tonight we made shakes from:

• 3/4 to 1 cup raw milk
• 6 scoops of Blue Bunny All Natural Vanilla ice cream
• 2 bananas
• 3 eggs
• 2 T raw, organic cacao powder
• 1 T ground maca root

Oh my were they ever good!  That will have to be a weekly treat!

Wednesday evening I was preparing to take hay to Elsie & crew and noticed one of the barred rock hens standing peculiarly.  I watched for a moment and out pops an egg!  It was a softshell-like she laid it 12 hours early or something.  I saved it to show at our homeschool play date on Thursday.  It felt like a water balloon.  I haven't seen any others, and hope it was just a fluke.  We crush and feed their shells back to them, so I'm guessing they get enough calcium.  Oyster shells if I find more?

Melody at Laughing Duck Farm had goat babies born on her farm recently too, if you need another dose of goat baby cuteness!  Ours are almost a month old and I need to take more pictures.

For Valentine's Day we went to a community event/round table discussion about the needs of local farmers and local food venues and how to bring it all together.  I'm glad we went and am eagerly awaiting the arrival of notes from the night via email, so that I can share with you what transpired, without having to type it all out!  Basically we shared (the panel and audience) the problems facing growers and then potential solutions.  The problems were many but came down to two basics:  community education and less government regulation.  The solutions sounded good, but I wonder just how well many can be carried out. 

We booked a trip on the Grand Canyon Railway for March 18th.  We bid on tickets last April at a benefit auction and are now taking the trip (because the tickets expire on the 18th!)  Goober Gus will love it!

For those so inclined, last Sunday's church service is available here.  Facing truth in life.  Good stuff!

As Real as it Gets

At least around here for now, anyway!  Just a glimpse into a few real food forays this week. 

These are the ingredients in Amy's Homemade Ranch Dressing.  We mixed up a few bags for Christmas gifts the other day.  It went into plastic baggies with one of these labels and the instructions from Amy's blog.

Tuesday night we had these yellow fin tuna steaks with this Japanse sauce.  I only made the sauce, didn't use the rest of that recipe.  It was so delicious!  We had a little bit of wasabe sauce to go with it too.  Mmmmm.  The recipe for the sauce was for  more tuna than we had, so I used the leftover to flavor a crockpot full of rice to eat for dinner tonight.  I added asparagus to it and that was good enough that my husband had seconds.

The only reason we even had tuna was because we saw it on sale Sunday when we stopped to buy cod for dinner.  Guess we're all in the mood for fish lately!  We baked the cod in lemon garlic butter, and once again had asparagus with it.  Another delightful dinner!

Before dinner tonight, I made this fermented cranberry-apple-orange relish from the GNOWFGLINS blog to take to my parents house for Christmas dinner-the day after.  I modified that a little too-I had tangerines, but no oranges.  It smells and looks fabulous!

After dinner, I started a loaf of whole wheat bread in the bread machine.  Then the 3 of us made granola.  It's a recipe from Amy at Homestead Revival too.  Goober Gus and I have made it before and we love it!  Once that went into the oven the boys went to play and I made coconut/peppermint bark from GNOWFGLINS.  It's YUMMY and has the added benefit of being good for me!  I should have taken pictures, but I really just wanted to get it all done so I could sit down for a few minutes!  Is it bedtime yet?

My Experience with Pumpkin Cake Bars

When I read this recipe, my mouth started watering!  We had a pumpkin waiting to be made into something wonderful, so this went on the list.  Maybe I built it up too much in my mind, but it just didn't satisfy the way I anticipated.  We cut up and cooked the pumpkin Friday night, and I started in on these bars Saturday.

I think I needed to cook them just a bit longer.  The top had browned and it seemed firm, but I failed to do the "insert toothpick" test.  The frosting called for coconut oil and coconut butter, so I had set them in the oven with the light on to liquefy.  I think that caused the icing to not mix properly.  I never did put it on the bars.  Tomorrow when the house is a bit warmer, I'm going to try mixing it again and see what we get.  If that doesn't work I'll figure out a way to use the mixture in another recipe.

The Cake Batter

Icing Ingredients

Cooled and Cut

One plus-the almond butter was purchased at Costco for $5.99 for a 26oz jar.  I had to go to New Frontiers for the coconut butter and saw this brand of almond butter for $12 something, for a smaller jar!  Sure glad I found it at Costco, but now I'm convinced I spent too much on the coconut butter!

Have you got a favorite pumpkin recipe to share?  I still have a full crock pot of puree to use!

Pumpkin Chips

Today we made pumpkin chips.  We had purchased a bag of Sweets & Beets after cutting a truckload of wood today...and on the way home talked about getting our gigantic pumpkin made into puree so we can make pumpkin pie and pumpkin cake.  That's when Tony thought it might be fun to try making pumpkin chips.  He was talking about making a puree and drying it, I suggested he just use the vegetable peeler and slice it raw.  We tried some on the oven, with salt and garlic powder on them and they're pretty good!  Now we've got the dehydrator full to test that method.

This post is part of the Fight Back Friday at Food Renegade.

I Did It!

I made butter!  I've been wanting to try all year, and just never made it a priority.  I'm glad I waited until we were getting the higher fat Nubian milk though.  It separates better than Alpine milk, and I was able to collect 44oz of rich cream to start with.  I don't have photos because my hands were covered with butter.  Here's how I did it:

1. Scoop cream out of jars.
2. Mix with whip at highest speed of mixer that still keeps the cream in the bowl.
3. The cream will expand just like whipping cream, and then start to break down-I turned the speed up at this point.
4. When it gets watery and looks like it's going to fail, turn off the mixer and notice all the clumps of butterfat in the water!
5. Here's where I could have used an experienced butter maker...I read the section on butter making in the Encyclopedia of Country Living, but still would have liked to have someone here.  I washed my hands, got out a fine mesh strainer, some parchment paper (so the counter wouldn't get all smeary) and a bowl of ice water.
6. I poured the whole thing into the strainer (over yet another bowl), then scraped the butter out and tried working it on the parchment paper.  Don't do this if you're using my instructions for butter making!
7. I ended up forming the butter into a ball and placing it back in the mixer bowl to rinse it.  The ice water didn't seem to be a good idea either.
8. I just kept putting in enough water to cover it well, squeezed the butter thru it and poured off the milky water.  Next time I will do this with a bamboo spoon.  My hands were covered and I was kinda stuck doing what I was doing.
9. After 6 or 8 washings I decided it was clean enough. [The rinsing keeps it from going rancid too quickly, but I don't think it will last past our first loaf of homemade bread!]  In reality you should rinse until the water is clear, and then do it again.  I thought it was clear, and then the next rinse would be just as milky.  Not sure if I just wasn't squeezing the butter enough or what.
10. I put it in a small glass bowl and worked some salt into it with the bamboo spoon.  I rinsed it one more time too.  I think I've got about 3/4 cup of butter from the 44oz of milk.

That's it!  I have tiny pieces of butter stuck to the strainer, thinking that next time I will plan on cooking some fresh veggies that should be topped with butter and let the strainer sit over the pot while they cook-letting those particles melt onto the veggies.

If you've made butter, got any tips for a newbie?

Best Yogurt Yet!

I've been making goat milk yogurt for close to a year now, and have just kinda gotten used to it being thin with lots of whey, and quite tangy.  I generally only use it in smoothies, since it's so thin and tangy.  It makes a good orange juice and banana smoothie.

Back in the Spring, when we came to the realization that our cow wasn't going to let us milk her, we decided to expand the goat herd by adding Nubians.  We found sister Nubian/Boer cross goats, one had recently given birth and one was pregnant.  I started training both of them a few months ago-boy are they skittish!  The older mama, Peaches has calmed down and her baby, Cream is old enough to take to the buck, so I've been getting all of her milk for a month or so now.  It's not been much-average of 12 ounces a day-but Molly's production really shot up when I tried to dry her off for the last two months of her pregnancy, so Peaches' milk has been going in its own jar.

Yesterday I decided to use her milk to make the yogurt.  I was a few ounces shy of the 2 quarts needed, but figured it was close enough.  We had to use store bought yogurt for the starter culture and all I could do was hope for the best.  Well, I got it!  After incubating for 8 hours and cooling in the fridge over night, I opened the container expecting the usual 1/2 pint or so of whey, but found a layer of thick, creamy yogurt.  I grabbed a spoon and dug in to see if there was whey below.  Nope!  Just 2 quarts of thick, creamy (and yummy) yogurt!  It's as thick as the store bought, and it's NOT tangy.  I could actually eat this!

Some-things Cookin'

1. It occured to me that many of you may think, based on the title of my blog that it's mostly about cooking.  If you knew that my last name is Cook, you'd see the twist.  I wanted to incorporate my name and also convey that there wasn't a specific topic for this blog, so that's where the some-things part comes in.  Enough about me, let's talk about what I made for dinner!
2. After some consultation with Polly at Polly's Path, I knew what I needed to do with the last batch of chevre that came out more solid and kinda strong on the goat flavor.  Today I put it in the crockpot with about 1/3 cup of milk while we were out planting more seeds, after Tony got home from work.  I added a very generous scoup of asiago parmesan tapenade that I got from a local olive mill.  I then sprinkled it all with salt and Italian seasoning and let it warm until dinner time.  I've been trying to use food from our freezer (imagine that!) so the cheese sauce went on shrim and crab stuffed ravioli.  Yes, it was GOOD!  We had more of the salad from the other night with the buttermilk dressing.  Speaking of the dressing, does anyone have a good recipe of what goes into buttermilk/ranch dressing?
3. After dinner I started moving food to the fridge we brought home from Tony's shop.  4 gallons of milk and 9 dozen eggs.  I wonder if I could contract with a local restaurant to buy my excess eggs?  It's a small place-old bungalow style house converted into a restaurant-and I think they're only open 5 days a week.  I should ask how many eggs they go through a week and see if they're interested in featuring free range, local eggs on their menu.  Hmmm...

Chocolate Banana Smoothie

After a morning of outdoor chores, we came in to have a smoothie.  I already had the bananas and yogurt blended together when I decided to see what it would taste like to add sweetened cocoa powder to the mix.  Not bad-espcially considering the tartness of this batch of yogurt!  My son took a drink and said "mmmm".  It's simple, but here's how I did it.

16 oz plain yogurt (homemade is best!)
2 bananas
2 Tbsp sweetened cocoa powder (I have this ready for hot chocolate-ratio of two parts sugar to one part cocoa)
Blend until smooth-enjoy!

Economics of Homemade Laundry Soap

Last summer I made homemade laudry soap for the first time.  Based on the small initial investment, and the large quantity of soap made from a small portion of those ingredients, I knew it was really CHEAP to make this soap.  I never did the math though, and when telling anyone about it, I always said it broke down to pennies per load. 

Well, I just ran out of the batch made last summer and had to start another one, so I did the math.  I get 10 gallons of laundry soap for $1.21!  It only takes 1/4 cup per load, so 640 loads to a 10 gallon batch makes it .00189 cents per load, not even a penny!!  Not even half, or quarter of a penny!  If I do 5 loads a week it's still not a full penny per week.

If you need to cut costs, I highly recommend this as one way to do it.  It takes 15 minutes to mix it all up and then it sits for 24 hours, so it's not even labor intensive.  Here's what I did:

Grate one bar of Zote soap (some use Ivory or Fels Naptha) and dissolve in hot water.  I put it in a large pot on the stove, brought the water close to a boil, then added the grated soap and turned the temp down to low.  I whisked it a few times while it dissolved.  While this is happening, heat 2 gallons of water and add to a 5 gallon bucket.  When the Zote is dissolved, add it to the bucket with 1 cup of washing soda, and 1/2 cup of borax.  Whisk it all together to mix well, then add enough hot water to fill the bucket and stir once more.  Put the lid on and let it sit for 24 hours.  After that, use a smaller, handy container to hold your soap-perhaps an old laundry detergent bottle.  Fill it halfway with the soap, then add water to fill the bottle.  This is how you end up with 10 gallons of soap from a 5 gallon bucket.  Shake it well prior to each use.  Most directions I've read say to use hot water to fill the bottle, probably to break up the gelled soap.

Mine didn't gel this the first time, probably because I didn't have a lid for the bucket.  I still used the soap though.  My clothes come out clean.  I didn't dillute the first batch though, but now that I think about it, just because it didn't gel didn't mean there was less soap, so I should have.  I'd still have soap if I did!

More laundry recipes and a FAQ can be found here.

Best Fed Chickens in Town

I think we've got the best fed chickens around!  Today they got at least a half gallon of whey from my first (successful) cheesemaking venture, and then Tony found a recently killed snake in the yard, so he cut it into large chunks for them.  They're still pecking away at it.

In related news, Mr Redofrd likes the chick feed, so he's figured out how to get into their opened pen to eat it.  We've moved their pen to the backyard and open it during the day.  Mr Redford hops right in and sleeps on their straw and eats their feed.

About that cheese...I love it!  Tony doesn't seem too excited about it, and our son is turned off because he likes "orange" cheese.  I told him the orange part isn't the good part, so he tried it and asked for more.  He still hasn't eaten the little bowlful I gave him, but he says he likes it.  I doused it with sea salt and then a bell pepper rub.  I'm thinking almost any seasoning would be fabulous with it.  Maybe cilantro lime...For those that have experience making chevre, can I do anything to make it more firm/less crumbly?

I also made buttermilk.  Tony is the only one to try it so far and he said it's the best he's ever had and he'll drink it straight.  I plan to make buttermilk biscuits with it tomorrow morning-to go with our fresh eggs and goat sausage.  MMMMMMMMM!

More About Time

About ten years ago I read an article that questioned whether our modern day appliances really saved us any time.  The author suggested that the time it takes to run the dishwasher might be longer than the time it takes to wash them by hand.  She went through a whole list of examples and the whole time I was thinking to myself, "true, but I'm not standing at the sink the whole time the dishwasher is running" or whatever the device in question might be.  A few days after that, I was making dinner, baking bread, washing dishes and doing laundry-and I wasn't even home!  There was a meal in the crockpot, dough in the bread machine, etc.  I was getting 4 things done at home while I wasn't even there.  Obviously that article has stuck with me all these years.  I was reminded of it again this morning as I was warming milk in the crockpot to put it into the yogurt maker, and the ice cream maker was running-all while cooking bacon and eggs for breakfast.  Her point may have been right, but I feel it was shortsighted for reasons already mentioned.

Now-when those with foresight to create items that help us can come up with the self cleaning kitchen....

A small kitchen gets destroyed quickly, but it also doesn't take too long to clean it up!  Now off to the store to get the ingredients for this marinade to make goat fajitas for dinner.  A friend has homemade tortillas too!

I Made Ketchup!

I know that shouldn't be so exciting...but it's one more thing I did for our family that didn't depend on consumerism so much.  And no corn derivitives.  Here's what I did:

4 lbs tomatoes
1/2 C vinegar
1/4 C sugar
1/2 ounce salt (rough measure)

I cooked the tomatoes in the crock pot until they could be smashed.  I removed as much liquid as I could and put the rest thru the blender to smooth it out.  In the crock pot I put the rest of the ingredients and stirred til the sugar and salt were dissolved.  I added the tomato mix and it's simmering now-lid off-to let any more moisture cook out.  It tastes a bit salty, so maybe less salt.  It looks like it will yield about a quart.  I don't plan to give it a hot water bath.  I think the vinegar, sugar and salt will preserve it until we've used it all.  It'll be kept in the fridge too.

What's for Dinner Tonight?

I've been trying to be more pro-active with that question.  I've printed a blank monthly calendar to fill in dinner plans for each night, also trying to use what we already have.  It's been helping, but I need to get out of the rut of the same few options, so I subscribed to The Homemaking Cottage.  I spent an evening on the couch with my laptop perusing the Recipe section while my son watched movies.  This one sounded like a good option for nights when I won't be able to spend time cooking.  Although I have a tendancy to adapt recipes to our needs and what's on hand, so mine was a bit different.  It's in the crock pot now, I'll have to leave a comment about how we liked it. 
Someone gave us a couple of spaghetti squash, so I used one instead of noodles.  I split it and placed it in the crockpot with water for a few hours on high.  It might not have needed that long, but I was doing other things.  Then I oiled the crock pot, scraped the squash into a bowl and added the eggs and paremesan cheese.  I used ricotta cheese and spicy Italian sausage.  I forgot to buy sauce (hey, I had 3 preschoolers in the cart!) so I used diced tomatoes, drained.  I layered everything and topped with a bit more parmesan.  When it's almost time to serve it I will put the shreeded cheese on top.  If I had really been on the ball I would have put some bread in the machine.  Oops!