Tomato Frenzy!

I'm sitting in the kitchen overseeing a massive tomato cooking operation. Inspired by Barbara Kingsolver's book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle I've bought tons of toms in order to stockpile the summer harvest. I wish I could pretend that I'd grown them all myself but the combination of a late arriving greenhouse, too small pots, inexperience and a total lack of a Scottish summer has caused my plants to be barren. Not to worry, the local farm shop and Organic Diane who delivers our veg box from her farm every two weeks, have supplied me with enough of the red stuff to keep us going through the winter.
It's a lovely job, making sauce. All you have to do is hang about for an hour or two while the house smells like the best pizza you've ever tasted and then when the tomatoes emerge, blistered and sweet, squish them through a sieve leaving skin and seeds behind. My sauce was a bit too thin for my liking so I boiled it a bit to reduce it some more. Then into tubs and frozen as soon as it cools.
Twelve kilos of tomatoes have been through the treatment this week.

The house organising is almost over ( at least this bit ) and we now have a lovely store-room as seen in the photo above. Yes, that is a bottle of unopened whisky on the shelf. It was a prize and we haven't got round to drinking it yet. Had the prize been gin, the evidence would be long gone. The store room is a funny wee place. About 15 years ago it was a hairdressing salon - one sink and only room for one customer at a time. When we took up the lino a few years back, there was still hair stuck to the floorboards. Many people in the village have been trimmed in my house.

Talking of prizes, we are off to York next week. My mum, the competition diva won us first class tickets and we have booked a lovely sounding B and B. My dad is busy too this weekend, he is part of a relay team doing a 24hour walk/run/stagger to raise money for Cancer Research. More power to his walking boots! Me, I'll be busy sorting out the knitting to take on the train to York. It's a long journey without needles.