Thank god I keep my farmer friends close- its part of my hunting instinct I guess, friends and whom has what. who can get stuff when I need it and what can I offer in return. This year has been a particularly different year in the garden, tomato’s basically being over run with harlequin bugs and mice ( little nibble holes in them). Beans have gone well, they are something for me that’s a staple, they give and give and give. Got my last 2 zucchini sitting on the bench, they last better just sitting on the bench.

So a friend works in a tomato farm in hot houses and because they only sell certain size and  shapes, I can get boxes of the ones that don’t fit this mold, top price tomato’s for nicks ( I like the sound of that) and we are saving something going to the bin!

I picked up 40 kilo’s of the beauties, passed 20 kilos on ( swings and roundabout move), I then set up shop ( this must be done outside next year) got the kids involved and away we went. The best thing about this it involved the whole family- next year I am going to do what Rohan Anderson ( Whole larder love fame) does by having the Passata day- genius- invite some friends around and get all our tomato’s and do it all together- have a large meal and good drink together and make a day of it

Chloe and the boy next door helping, plenty of containers for all the bits. I ended up cutting the tops of the tomatoes and keeping them separate for making sauce later on

Hard at it

Mason our 3 year old turns the handle on my tomato separator thingy- its great I love it to bits. puree 1 side and the skins and the seeds out the side. My other mince will do this but I had already cleaned it before realising I also needed it, thus I pulled out old trusty

boiling the left overs for my Hoochie Mumma Sauce – tomato sauce with chilli adds a nice kick to the taste

The bench with tomato puree in the jars ready for their water bath.

1 of the tomato sauce jars