I’ve been thinking about this technique I saw a while back – you take the innards out of the tomatoes and slow roast the..hulls, I guess you’d call them, until the flavor is really concentrated. I salted and peppered to add flavor and sprinkled with sugar to take the acidity out of the tomatoes. I also rough chopped a few cloves of garlic and threw that on the pile. Roast on a sheet pan with a wire rack for as long as you like..you'll smell garlic and tomato all over the house.
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| A couple black cherry tomatoes, yellow, beefeater, Roma, and others. Not a job you do in your dress pants. http://beyondthebluegate.blogspot.com/ |
I didn’t roast mine for as long as I would have liked..again, because I was doing this on my lunch break..but I think the end result was really great, nonetheless. The tomatoes still had enough moisture in them that they created a sauce-like consistency when run through the food processor, but weren’t as ‘bright’ tasting as they would have been right off the vine. The garlic added a lot of flavor, and the sugar helped mellow everything out. Because I had so many different varieties of tomatoes, it’s a really deeply flavored sauce. Once I’ve got some pasta, I’ll add some herbs or wine (or nothing at all) and enjoy truly homemade pasta sauce!
Saturday morning, I got out of bed ready to rumble! Before breakfast, I decided to go outside and start salvaging the bricks from the two front steps that I’m having redone. Once I started chipping away at the brickwork, I realized just how bad the condition of the steps really was. The brick was actually the best part of the step..they really didn’t want to let go, save for a few.
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| This was taken shortly before I bought the house..and the cracks had only gotten wider. |
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| A couple of the bricks had been falling out anyway, and a few came with a little help. |
10 minutes later..
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| The rest of the bricks were STUCK and wouldn't budge..but the whole step would. As I see it, the steps were poured on a short, shallow limestone foundation, so there was a lot of heaving with every freeze/thaw cycle. This explains the cracks and out-of-level appearance. |
About an hour later, my parents came by and we made quite a bit of headway on the baseboard project, finishing up most all of the kitchen and laundry areas. All that is left to do is the bathroom, my bedroom, and a small closet!
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| Laundry all trimmed out and painted! |
Dad worked on the toe kick part of the kitchen cabinets – very snazzy (and very FINISHED looking!)
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| From the laundry: notice the area under the cabinets? Dad finished that up Saturday. Our friend Aimee came and fixed my kitchen outlets, too..everything's coming together! |
Mom and I wandered around caulking and touch-up painting. Everything looks so much better once it’s all been ‘tightened’ up a bit J
Saturday was my time away from my projects. I went to Des Moines to spend time with friends and ended up staying through to Sunday night. A couple really cool stops along the way:
· http://www.continental-lounge.com/ - super classy/sexy bar. Had a sidecar and listened to jazz with a lady friend. Instantly felt like Don Draper.
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| The "Planet Terror" at Zombie Burger: Cheddar cheese, bacon, BBQ sauce, caramelized onions. I had the "Dead Moines", not pictured: ham, prosciutto, gouda, and truffle mayo. Gets better every time I go! |
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| Yeah..this basically sums up my Saturday.. |
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