Tomatoes - Easy Salsa Recipe - Easy Spaghetti Sauce Recipe -SHTF - Growing Tomatoes - Preserving Tomatoes - Survival Homestead - Always Having Tomatoes

Homestead Secret:  Store tomatoes in a cast iron or metal pot and they will stay fresh and firm much longer.

Easy Salsa Recipe

Best Recipe for Salsa

No Cooking Required

Salsa is made with tomatoes, hot peppers, onions, parsley, cilantro, with salt and sugar to taste.  Cut everything up fine, a food processor works well here.  To freeze this recipe, make sure to put it first in a sieve to remove the moisture and enhance the final texture. Super easy and delicious!

Easy Tomato Sauce Recipe

Best Recipe for Spaghetti Sauce

Tomato sauce is an excellent dish for using dried herbs as spices.  Put ¼ cup of olive oil in bottom of large pot and cook at medium high heat.  Add tomatoes and/or onions, celery, zucchini, peppers, and a tablespoon of sugar, a sprinkle of salt, and if lucky a few bay leaves.  Stir vigorously.  When vegetables are warm, put lid on pot and turn down to one quarter heat.  Simmer until all vegetables are soft then remove lid.   

Continue to cook until desired texture is achieved, the longer the thicker the sauce.  When the sauce is ready add oregano and/or parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme and basil then salt to taste.  Some years there weren’t enough tomatoes to make enough sauce for the winter.  No one noticed a different when some tomatoes were with plums, apples and pears.  

Tomato sauce freezes well,   Let cool to room temperature, spoon into freezer bags and freeze.  Score the bags for so smaller portions can be used for omelets and soups.  Lay bags flat in freezer to save space. 

 

Cooking Tip:  As the sauce reduces the saltiness becomes more intense, so don't adjust the salt until the end.  Do not put the hot sauce in the fridge to cool, the flavor sours (in a bad way) when you do.  (This is true for soups and leftovers too.) 

Growing Tomatoes is Easy

A family will easily use the tomatoes plants from three or four plants per person.   

Buy your first plants. When planting bury three quarters of the plant underground.  Put egg shells, banana peels, coffee grinds, and fish fertilizer in with the plant

 

The spot should not get any shade during the day. Plant just before the full moon in June. If planted in pots, one tomato plant per pot.  

Tomatoes need an even amount of water on a regular basis, more rigidly than any other food plant.  Production can be ruined if this plant is repeatedly allowed to dry out before watering.   

Tomato plants, the stems and leaves, are poisonous! 

Green tomatoes are excellent eating however.  Slice them, dip them in flour, fry them over medium heat in olive oil until brown.  Then sprinkle with salt, pepper and sugar and serve, awesome!

It takes 3 months growing for tomatoes to grow ripe enough to eat.  In the fall before the frost pick all the tomatoes, ripe or not, and bring them in the house.  Over the next six weeks as the tomatoes will ripen you will be able to utilize them.

Seed can be collected from the ripest tomatoes.  Put the pulp of your best tomato in water for three days, stir daily, drain, and dry to save.  It never hurts to slightly bury one of your best tomatoes in the garden to see if it will sprout in spring.  

Want to know about another vegetable? 

Use the search engine to the right.

Peace