spaghetti sauce, part II: I should've done part II for part I

This isn't going to build, now, there's no arc, because part II is less interesting than part I. I was thinking temporal, "beginning, middle, end," when I should've been thinking emOTional. That's the trouble with this "blogging."

Part II is stewed tomatoes. You just cut up a bunch of tomatoes and cook them for less time than you cooked the tomato paste tomatoes. If you add olive oil and garlic, your stewed tomatoes will have "depth!"

You do the same thing and don't bother to blanch and remove skins, just obliterate in the food processor about an hour or so into the cooking process when they're all amorphous and gooshy. Cook them 'til they look like the stuff in the cans.

I can't wait for part III: part III is going to be a real nail-biter!

spaghetti sauce, part one (of three): TOMATO PASTE

Tomatoes are way out of season, but the 'ponic tomato people at the market are keeping on keeping on and they have some interesting varieties worth investigating despite their lesserthan ponic-ness. I got four different kinds, including those 'Cherokee purple' (cultivars go in single quotes) ones. Everybody raves like they're great, and perhaps they are, but I prefer a more acid tomato, myself. Nevertheless I invested in the 'Cherokee purples' acause they are purple and I figured that feature coupled with their low acidity would make them superior paste tomatoes.

See, 'cause I was gonna make my own paste.

Which I did: I made my own tomato paste.

I made paste out of the purples and stewed tomatoes out of the other three kinds. (I didn't pay too much or any attn to what they all were, but they were essentially your basic snooze-a-rama store tomato, your on-vine tomato, and your high shoulders tomato, in red. I could've gotten yellow high shoulders tomatoes, but I just didn't go for it this time. I just wasn't feeling it for the yellow high shoulders tomatoes. Next week will it be their turn?)

So to make tomato paste what you do is this: cut your purples or plums or whatever into one-inch dice (That implies you have to be precise, but actually you don't. Three-inch wedge works just as well as one-inch dice. Just bash 'em up anywayworks). Put them in a steel stockpot and crank the heat 'til they start jumping around (do not burn). Turn the heat down and simmer for a long time, like an hour. Cool, blast in the food processor, return to boil, simmer 'til you achieve paste. Note that you do not have to parboil and remove the skins. You just obliterate the skins in the food processor. Time saving and less depressing in these scary economic dayz because you're using the whole tomato.

You can't imagine how fulfilling it is to see six pounds of big purple monsters slowly mutate into a cup and a half of delicious paste. You wouldn't think the paste would be so delicious on its own, either--it's just tomatoes boiled down. But turns out you can't resist it! Making tomato paste is really really fun.

Ort report

The first, best tenet of the religion of not starving is not to throw calories away. Eat them or freeze them. Meat scraps left on your plate when you're done with your steak can go in the stock bag. Peels and any oddities you cut off your vegetables as you prepare them for ingestion can go in the stock bag. Everything goes in the stock bag. When the stock bag fills up, make stock and make soup with the stock. Eat the soup. Begin again.

I got some books on freezing at a garage sale for 5 cents each. They show you how to wrap things and stuff and tell you handy tips like for instance, "don't freeze lettuce." Some absolutely fascinating recipes for desserts, since these came out in the 50s. While I can still afford to shop, I should experiment with these desserts and report. Okay: that's what I'll do!

Larry McMurtry

When you're eating to win, you have to cook all day. The way I manage, I listen to Larry McMurtry books while I chop and chop and chop and chop and dice and mince and sauté and bake and stew and steam and blend and stir and eviscerate and wash and spin and rinse and drain. It is just verb verb verb verb verb when you're in the kitchen, and it's hot and dull in there. And in my kitchen they put the sink and counter in a stupid place nowhere near the window, so you're trapped standing in the same spot for hours, staring at tile. Also the lighting sucks and I lack the inclination to do anything about it. But for Larry McMurtry, I would die in there. Unfortunately, the version I have of All of My Friends Are Going To Be Strangers isn't read by Wolfram Kandinsky, if that is how you spell it. I hope it doesn't mean anything happened to Wolfram K. I would cry.

I've developed a rhythm with this. I lose weight Wednesday through Friday, hold steady Saturday through Tuesday, lose more weight the following Wednesday through Friday. So far it's working a treat. I was in fourth place last week because of all the Red Stripe you have to drink when you're on vacation, but I expect to see some movement this week.

Hey-Wow Things To Do With Kale!
You know, it turns out kale soup blows. But there is another hey-wow thing you can do with kale that doesn't. You can chop it up coarse, flash fry it 'til it's bright green (it's inedible at this point because it's still all fibrous), then snatch it out the pan and throw it in the food processor. It will be much reduced in bulk. Grind it all up, add basil, nuts, garlic, olive oil and cheese, grind some more, and you have pesto with greater food value than pesto without kale. It tastes mighty fine and is jewel green. These days I'm actually doing this with collards and the various weird ditchweeds sold by Ditchweed Guy at the farmers' market, not kale, because it's so hot nothing but collards and ditch weeds will grow. There's still basil, though, so I'm good.

Thank you, Larry McMurtry (I know you're reading this). I love you.