Half a Bushel

Half a bushel of tomatoes. Yup, that's what I bought. First time I've ever purchased anything in an increment of a bushel, or fractional part of a bushel. I'm not gonna lie, it felt good. And since it's prime tomato harvesting time, half a bushel of beautiful, ripe tomatoes was only $15. To give you an idea of how many tomatoes that it, the box they gave me was an old beer box, case size. That's a lot of tomatoes.

My plan was to cook up a big ole batch of pasta sauce, and instead of canning it, I'd honor the sauce by making it the first item inside our newest basement inhabitant - the chest freezer.

It took me a couple of hours to process all the tomatoes, and another hour or so to pick some fresh basil, oregano, and chives from our backyard herb garden to add to the sauce. I also purchased five pounds of onions for $3, so I chopped those up as well and threw them in the pot. The sauce took a while to cook down (the tomatoes were quite juicy), and I actually left them on low to cook down overnight.

I ended up with 11 jars (quart size) of pasta sauce, which are all happily hibernating in the basement freezer. From a cost benefit analysis, I only spent $18 on 11 jars of pasta sauce, which is still a savings over what I would have paid at the grocery store, but the joy is not in saving money, but having tasty homemade sauce waiting for me in the freezer.