Blood from a stone.

My husband always jokes that Lincoln cries when he gets put into my pocket...he knows he'll get pinched (as in I'm a penny pincher...)  Well, I fully acknowledge that this is the case; it's just the way I am.  So when I make one item out of the garden, you can bet that I squeeze every last drop of it out...like getting blood from a stone.  Yesterday was salsa day.  I was able to make a double batch of the Blue Book of Canning's Jalapeno Salsa...out of the garden.  I blanched, skinned, cored, and deseeded lots of tomatoes and saved the scraps.  They could go to the chickens as is, and they would think they got quite the treat.

OR

I could core and skin and deseed lots of tomatoes into a pot over low heat, use my immersion blender after they get soft, and then strain them.  Afterwards, I was left with...

Pulp...Just a little bit of pulp...which I then mashed with a spoon through the sieve in order to get all the tomato yummyness out.  

So I started with about 3 quart boxes of tomatoes from my garden.  I then used 6 cups of tomatoes for salsa leaving me about 3 cups of tomato goop that normally would be a waste product. (I know it doesn't add up as 3 quarts is 12 cups, but when dealing with whole tomatoes vs cut up and mashed, the spaces are removed thus creating a smaller volume...) I ended up with over a pint of tomato sauce which I processed along with the salsa...and half a cup of pulp to give the chickens.  

I think of it as free tomato sauce...stuff that normally would go to waste, but found a new purpose...maybe tomato sauce for a quick dinner or sauce for a pizza/meatza...the verdict will be in some dark, cold, tomato- out-of-season night.  Summer in a jar with just a little extra effort (I'd bet it was 5 min. or less.)

Linked to the prarie homestead barn hop