{Tomato Marmalade}

It's been yet another summer with abundance of tomatoes! Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining; just running out of ideas on what to do with them... Until I looked in this book I have that contains recipes of various preserves.

Salsa? Done...
Spaghetti sauce? Been there...
Tomato marmalade? Well, that's interesting!...

So I decided to give it a try... until I was in the middle of chopping and measuring my tomatoes and I realized that the recipe has an error in it - it states 2.5 lbs/2 kg of tomatoes. But wait, 2.5 lbs is only about 1.1 kg rather than 2 kg!!! AND the book recommends to follow the recipe exactly as the balance between fruit, sugar, pectin and acid is crucial for gel formation. What was I to do?!... I just decided to sort of wing it. I am quite please with the result (including my kid that now wants it on her sandwich ALL THE TIME!). Try it with your chicken or fish :)

{Delicious Meatless Spaghetti Sauce}

Although we live in a city, I garden in our backyard, and this is that time of the year where tomatoes are starting to ripen. Not to jinx it, but we get a generous amount of tomatoes every year! I really love tomatoes, but even I can't eat that much! In the past, I've done a delicious and easy salsa recipe (found HERE), and a few years ago I had a lot of tomatoes still green when we got our first frost that I made a relish.

This morning I weighed my tomatoes - 5 lbs! What to do with that? I didn't want more salsa, so the next best thing, I thought, would be homemade spaghetti sauce. I've never done it from scratch, only used store-bought, but we all know how different (and better) things taste when they'Re made from scratch. Am I right?!

So... let's dive into it!

Why I chose a meatless variety: I wanted to make a big batch - can it, so we could enjoy it for more than one meal. Canning meat products is more complicated (don't want bacteria to start breeding and spoil everything), and this process usually requires a pressure canner (which I don't have, have never used, and they are expensive). Plus, meatless given you more options when adding meat later - you can do the traditional ground beef/pork, but it can also be chicken, even sausage; the possibilities are many!

{Fluffy Pancakes}

My mom and grandma make the best fluffy pancakes hands down! Living in Canada, I haven't been able to replicate it as their recipe calls for use of kefir, a type of fermented milk product (they do sell it in stores here; although close, it's not quite the same in my opinion).

Finally, about 6 months ago I came across this recipe that yields awesome fluffy pancakes that everyone in my family can't get enough of! Try it, and I'm sure it will become your new Sunday favourite.

{Easy Basic Salsa Recipe}

A short time ago, I was given about 10 lbs of tomatoes. Although I absolutely love tomatoes, there's just no way to eat that much before they spoil. I decided that doing some preserves would be the best option, and salsa is a great choice! I've looked through a number of recipes before settling on this particular one. I like it because it's simple, requires basic ingredients (no fancy spices), cooking time is long enough that there's no processing of jars to follow. It's simple, fresh and delicious!

(click on images to enlarge)