Storms & Pasta Sauce

Well, it’s been a wet and woolly day!!  We had a tree fall down here at Vego Manor but it was actually a good thing because it was poisonous, apparently some kind of hallucinogen (Devil’s Trumpet springs to mind?) that can make you go blind and die – not the kind of thing we really want Sausage Friend getting her little paws on!  

I had planned a Mumma Bake day today but it’s been a bit of a hectic time at the Manor and I felt like we needed some time out/time off from it all, so I’ve postponed it – definitely not cancelled!  My plan was to make a massive pot of tomato pasta sauce for the Mumma Bake and then send jars home with all of my lovely friends as my contribution to the day.  Now, even though we didn’t go ahead with the Bake I was still prepared to make my pasta sauce, so I did it anyway, with the help of one of my omnivorous step daughters (let’s call her Foody Twin, she loves cooking and learning everything about the foods we eat, and of course eating!) who was in need of some cooking magic/bonding time.

Vego Papa (AKA Husband Friend) along with Sausage Friend (AKA Rampager) and Sporty Twin (I don't think there is anything that involves physical exertion that this child isn't good at.  Seriously.  It puts anti-sports people like myself to shame) headed out to the garage to do some unpacking and tidying, we’ve moved in to a lovely house with a two car garage but after three weeks we are yet to park our cars there because we’ve had a lot of stuff in there from the move.  Vego Papa was very productive in his unpacking and organising.  I’m not sure how helpful Sausage Friend or Sporty Twin were, but they kept Vego Papa company at least!

Myself and Foody Twin set out with a whole bunch of onions and garlic, three red onions, diced and 6 monstrous cloves of garlic which would equate to about 10-12 cloves of regular garlic, minced.  I did the onions and Foody Twin did the garlic.  We are a very efficient team:

Then we fried them in a big glug of olive oil – about 4 tablespoons – with about 8- 10 bay leaves on a medium heat stirring regularly for a few minutes until the onion and garlic were soft and scrummy.  The house smelt AMAZING:

 

A few weeks ago I found some new organic canned tomatoes on special for $1.00 a can, they are in BPA-free cans too *Happy Dance* so I bought a whole heap of them.  Ten of these cans were added to the pot with the onion and garlic – three of whole tomatoes and the rest diced but any combination of the two would work.  I also added about two tablespoons of dried basil, two tablespoons of cracked black pepper, one tablespoon of salt and two tablespoons of evaporated cane juice (*healthy* sugar) and half a chopped chilli – I would use more if it weren’t being shared with little mouths and sensitive people ;-)  We brought it to the boil then turned the heat down and simmered it until it was thick and delicious stirring occasionally (about 1 -2 hours) – taste testing is a MUST in the Vego Mumma kitchen.  

Turn the heat off and add a good handful or two of fresh basil leaves, YUUUUUUUM.  Once the sauce was all delicious we jarred it.  

 

I bought some preserving jars from Coles the other week but also tried a used and washed out pasta jar and a coffee jar, I washed them in super-duper hot water along with the lids.  Then filled them with the pasta sauce while it was still warm – make sure you hold the jars with an oven mitt or tea towel – yes, I did find that out the hard way with a handful of steaming hot glass jar, don’t laugh at me!!

 

Once the jars are full, put them in a sink of boiling water and put the lids on – I found this tip on another blog somewhere and it said it would seal the lids, I was dubious – BUUUUUUT, it totally works.  The little pop seal on the top of the lids was depressed once they’d been sitting in the water for a while.  Awesomeness.

 

 

We had some of the sauce for dinner and it was amazing.  Time will tell how well it will keep in the pantry – which will be installed tomorrow [insert another *Happy Dance*] woot woot!

Well, I won’t get to post this post tonight so it will be in a Word document waiting for our power and internet connection to be restored and by then this sentence will be redundant…

It is now Monday and we went over 24 hours without power.  It was actually quite good though, I went through Sausage Friend's room, all her clothes, unpacked things that had been in bags since she was born...maybe the power should go out more often, I'll be far more productive!!  OH!  And we now have a new and amazing pantry hooray!!!  Now to fill it with all of our stuff...

Until next time Vego Lovers  x