Rainy day jobs

I was all ready to make an inroad into my long to do list but woke up this morning to the sound of rain.

In between rainy moments we were able to do some things...

I pulled out all of the spent borage plants and my older two put them through the shredder then into the compost.



We cut off all milddew infected leaves and threw them in the trash. Then we dug up some potatoes for the next few weeks to make space for carrots. As we dug we were astonished by the amount of earthworms. My little guy thought we could spare a few and gave a handful of them to the chickens before I stopped him!

We pulled out the rainbow corn and shredded the stalks too.

By that time it was lunch time and on looking in my fridge I realized that I had too many containers of tomatoes - of all sizes and some not nice for slicing, so the girls and I set to work making pasta sauce. I did not water bath process it as we will use them up soon and store in the meantime in the fridge. Here's how:



Wash 2 kg's tomatoes and cut off any blemishes. Put in a pot and cook on a medium heat. When they start to soften use a potato masher to squash them. Then add 2 chopped onions.



Add some Italian herbs - we used fresh from the garden instead of dried. Add in one chopped chilli.



Cook this together until it has reduced and thickened slightly. Add in a tablespoon of garlic, 1 teaspoon salt and lots of freshly ground black pepper. Allow to cook a little longer then spoon into sterilized jars.



This is a great base sauce for any Italian dishes like bolognaise, lazange or like what we are doing tonight - fresh potato gnocchi with this sauce.