semi-done

I got the tomatoes canned up today. I decided that I would can into the 1 pint jars instead of the 1 quart jars that I used last year. I usually mix my homemade sauce with storebought sauce so using the pint size makes it a little easier to do. Silly me forgot to sample the sauce before I canned it but judging by the smell, I think that I am pretty close. I may be short on salt but that can be added when I actually use the sauce - I've found that it's better to be under on a seasoning rather than over. I cooked the sauce down pretty far so the half case of tomatoes (plus a gallon bag of whole heirloom tomatoes that I had frozen up last year) only yeilded 9 pints of sauce. I'm hoping to get more seconds at the market next week so that I can can some more. I'd love to give a recipe but I didn't use one. Here's what I used though:

1/2 case of hybrid tomatoes skinned and seeded
aprox 5 lbs of heriloom tomatoes skinned and seeded
several tablespoons of minced garlic
6 bay leaves
aprox 2 tablespoons of mixed oregano, rosemary, thyme, basil and marjoram
about 1 tablespoon of sea salt
and I cooked it down for 3, maybe 4, hours.

I haven't taken the pesto out of the freezer yet but since I covered the ice cube trays with Glad Wrap there is no pesto smell permeating the refrigerator (hooray!)

I'm planning on carving the pumpkins in the am and doing the caramel apples in the early afternoon.

Oh, I didn't use a recipe for the pesto either. Again, here's a list of what I put into it:

6 large bunches of sweet italian basil
1/4 cup arugula
12 medium to large cloves of garlic
at least 8 oz of Parmesan cheese, probably more
1/2 to 3/4 cup of EVOO
1/2 to 1 cup of cold water
2 teaspoons of sea salt
1/4 cup of raw pumpkin seeds
1/4 cup of raw sunflower seeds
1/4 cup of some other seed that wasn't pine nuts
1/2 cup of fresh oregano
all wizzed together in the food processor until it was smooth and almost pourable.