Home made tomato sauce (ketchup)

We recently ran out of the shop bought tomato sauce and I looked through my recipe books to see if I could find a tomato sauce recipe, especially one that didn't have sugar in it. I found one in Julie Staffords Complete Taste of Life. I bought some tomatoes from the clearance shelf at my local green grocers as the ones I have growing at home are still small and green. The recipe goes as follows:
1kg tomatoes, skinned, seeded and chopped.
1 bay leaf
6 peppercorns
6 cloves (I only had ground cloves, so used about half a teaspoon)
65ml water
black pepper to taste.


I also used the recipe from my link "A use for tomato skins". To skin the tomatoes I put them in a pot of boiling water until the skins started to come off, then transferred them to a bowl of icy water. The skins came off easily. Lay the skins out on a baking tray with baking paper and dry out in a very slow oven. You may need to leave the oven door open for the moisture to escape. I had it in the warming section of my oven while I was cooking dinner. When the skins are completely dehydrated they will be very crispy. You can grind this up, add dried basil, garlic, etc and put in a spice shaker to use as flavourings for pizzas and pasta sauces.


Anyway, back to the sauce...
Place the tomatoes, bay leaf, peppercorns, cloves and water in a saucepan and bring to the boil over a high heat. Reduce the heat and simmer, covered, until the tomato is very soft. Puree by pushing through a sieve and discard the bayleaf, peppercorns and cloves (if using whole cloves). Season with black pepper. Cool and refridgerate until required.



My tips...
I have found the sauce to be very watery, not really what you want for having with your pies or in my two-year-old son's case, with your fish fingers. I think next time I will leave out the water or boil it a bit longer to make the mixture thicker.
The recipe makes about 2 1/2 cups. I have stored mine in the Tupperware sauce containers in the fridge.

What my mother told me, showed me, taught me.

Many of us have great mothers that we learn great things from, and we usually don't realise that until we become a mother ourselves. I know that there are some people who aren't lucky enough to have a great mother, but I am not only lucky enough to have one, I am also lucky enough to have a great mother-in-law. So here are some of the things that my mother and mother-in-law have taught me that I now use, especially in my efforts to live a more frugal lifestyle.
My mum taught me to knit and sew. She first taught me to knit when I was 12. I am now 39 and still love to knit. Over recent years she has been teaching me to sew, usually via advice over the phone as I live so far away from her.
My mum also taught me how to cook, which also started at the age of 12. I remember my first cooking lesson, it was a roast. She told me that she would give me regular cooking lessons and eventually I would have to start helping out with meals or cooking them myself, so that by the time I left home I would know how to at least cook basic meals. It was one of the best life skills she taught me, as I had many housemates who didn't know how to cook. Cooking meals yourself, especially making things from scratch, saves a lot of money.
"15 minutes of housework per day saves 3 hours on the weekend" is something my mum used to say often. She had set days that she did set tasks, and I now find myself doing the same thing. It's a great way to be frugal with your time.
My mother-in-law has taught me about gardening. She has taught me that it is better to have one or two of a particular plant and get a good crop off it, rather than have lots of plants that yield little. She has also shown me that plastic strawberry punnets make good seedling trays and the foam dishes that meat comes on from the supermarket can be washed and used at Playgroup as paint trays.
Both my mum and mother-in-law are good cooks that have given me great recipes and tips. They both have different cooking styles and tastes which gives me a good variety.
What has your mother taught you? Feel free to add a comment here. If you are unable to add a comment but would like to add one, try emailing it to me at paulinestips@gmail.com and I will add it for you.

Frugal forum get together

While it's great having lots of on-line access to information such as what you would find on the Down to Earth link, having my mother-in-law here and getting her gardening advice first hand made me realise that at some point it may be beneficial for myself and others to get together face to face. A forum of some sort, where we can meet, have a cuppa, exchange recipes, knitting and sewing patterns, look at each others gardens, help each other make cleaning and other household products, share budget saving tips, etc, would be something I would look forward to. If you live in the Adelaide area and are interested in coming and having a look at what is happening in my garden or my household, I will put up a link that you can email me and maybe we could get a group together. With Christmas coming up, maybe the first meeting could be around that subject, such as making Christmas decorations or edible gifts?

Busy in the garden

Well, my seedlings were doing well until I went away for a weekend and came back to find the bugs had eaten them while I was away. Fortunately on my return I had my mother-in-law with me who is a keen gardener. We bought some seedlings to replace the ones I had lost. Following her advice of not taking on more than I could handle, we planted capsicum, basil, strawberries, eggplant, zucchini, marigolds and spinach. The broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, watermelon and onions will have to wait until I see how successful I am with this lot. My sweetcorn, pumpkin, sunflowers, tomatoes, rockmelon and lettuce are all doing really well. We used some sugar cane mulch around the plants and they seem to be loving it. There are also some leafy twigs placed next to the seedlings to give them a bit of shade.
In the last few days the strawberries are starting to set fruit and the corn has its little seed pods emerging. My mother-in-law advised me to gently water the corn from the top when the seed pods come out to help it pollinate and for the corn cobs to grow. I can't wait to eat fresh corn from my garden.