What To Make With Your Home Grown Veggies and Fruits

What To Make With Your Home Grown Veggies and Fruits

In my previous post I gave tips on growing bountiful gardens. In my last post of the year, I will share a couple recipes that I use with my fresh veggies. 

If you make enormous gardens like mine, you have way too many tomatoes to eat. If you don't want them to go to waste, make some tomato sauce and can it in mason jars, By doing this you can save money by not having to buy tomato sauce for your pasta or home made pizza.

Step 1: Wash your tomatoes, make sure there is no dirt on them. Then cut an X on the bottom and take out the core.

Step 2: Boil some water, you may need a huge pot depending on how many you are going to be making a lot. You will also need a bowl of ice water.

Step 3: Once your water has boiled, place the tomatoes in the hot water, let them sit in there until the skin starts to peel. 

Step 4: When they are beginning to peel a little, get a slotted spoon and scoop the tomatoes from the hot water and place them into the ice water. 

Step 5: Peel the tomatoes and place them in a blender. (if you want chunky tomato sauce, leave out a few of the peeled tomatoes) Blend the tomatoes until you think it's blended enough for your personal taste.

Step 6: Place the blended tomatoes in a sauce pan on the stove. If you left out some tomatoes on the side to make it chunky, chop those up and add them now. 

Step 7: Add spices and other ingredients like garlic, onions, fresh basil, etc. 

Step 8: cook for about 15 min or so, stir a few times so it doesn't burn. 

Step 9: Can the sauce if you aren't going to eat it immediately. 

Now for the second and last recipe. Eggplant Parmesan. You can make this using the tomato sauce recipe from above.

Step 1: Wash the eggplants, and peel. You don't have to peel them, but I find it way better to have them peeled. 

Step 2: slice the eggplants about 1/4 in. thick.

Step 3: Scramble some eggs and add seasonings to the mixture. For me, I use 1 egg per eggplant.

Step 4: Dip the eggplant into the egg mixture and place in a heated pan with a little oil or butter. 

Step 5: fry the eggplant on both sides, when the egg covering the eggplant is crispy brown, its ready to take off the pan. Place it on a plate and finish cooking the rest. 

Step 6: Get out a large pan that you would normally use for making lasagna or casserole. Make sure you spray the pan with a non-stick spray.

Step 7: You will need to get out your tomato sauce, along with cheese(the more the better, and freshly grated cheese works better than the shredded bag cheese), and you can add some lasagna noodles if you need to make the dish larger for a big crowd. 

Step 8: layer the eggplant, sauce, and cheese. I also like to add squash and sometimes some cooked ground meat. 

Step 9: Place into the oven (375-400) and cook until the cheese is all melted and gooey. Or if you used pasta, cook until you can stick a fork all the way through the dish. 

Step 10: Let it cool for a bit, and serve on some rice or pasta if you didn't already add pasta to it. If you did, just enjoy the dish by itself. 

Hope you can try out these recipes. If you have any questions let me know and ill be happy to explain things. I don't have any measurements because I don't use them, when it comes to my cooking, I just estimate the amount of everything I need, so I know it can be hard for some people to not have any form of measurements.  

Thanks for reading. 

Even though This is the last post of the year, I may still be posting a few times here and there, so if you are ever bored feel free to read up on my Unsystematic Facts. 

(recipes are from personal knowledge)