Garden Fresh Marinara

It is tomato season! Our balcony garden has been producing tomatoes and we have been loving them!

Here is a garden fresh marinara sauce that will be a great accompaniment to your next meal. It can be used as a topping over noodles, rice, potatoes, or veggies. It is easy to make and can be made from ingredients you can grow in your own garden. No water is added to this sauce as it reduces down and blends the flavors together.

I hope that you enjoy it as much as we all do!

Ingredients:
3 cups diced tomatoes
1/3 cup diced onion
3/4 cup shredded carrots (finely grated)
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon italian seasoning

Wash and dice tomatoes. Place tomatoes into a sauce pan and put on medium heat. Dice the onion and finely grate the carrots. Add them to the tomatoes in the pan. Sprinkle seasonings over the top and then stir. Bring to a simmer and stir again. Turn heat down to medium-low and let simmer, uncovered for 30-45 minutes. Do not add any water.

Sauce is ready as soon as the onion and carrots are soft or at a texture you will enjoy.

Here it is served over some Ancient Harvest noodles made from organic corn and organic quinoa flour. 

I served it with some grass-fed organic beef on the side. 

Tomatoes!

My parent's garden needed the tomatoes picked and no one wanted them. So I took them home and me and my "helpers" set to work dicing them up to can. 

The kids used butter knives to "cut" them. It mostly meant they smooshed them and then tossed big wads of them into the bowl of diced ones. 

Gabriella mostly eats everything she cuts up. She LOVES tomatoes!

Xander was very excited to get to help. This was his first time getting to use a knife. 

All done! We got 11 pints of fresh, organic, homegrown tomatoes canned up. They are so good to put in soups in the winter time!!

Tomatoes are SO easy to can! Dice them up, toss them in jars with 1 T of lemon juice (per pint) and then pressure cook at 11 pounds for 10 minutes (pressures vary by altitude so be sure to consult your pressure canner's book before you can them). Easy peasy!