With the recent knowledge of our daughter’s allergy to corn, our lives are rapidly changing and its not been easy, so we are now learning to read labels and discovering that most everything, processed at all, contains a corn product of some kind & it allows me to eliminate things I may not realize may even be in our foods.

Tonight, I took a bunch of tomatoes our neighbor gave us and am processing them into a homemade spaghetti sauce that I will freeze in quart bags for use in the future.  I began by processing the raw tomatoes.

After processing the tomatoes I threw everything into the crock pot to slow cook for around 8 hours.

Here’s my recipe: (sort of – I cook by handfuls like Grandma Ringer did)

10-12 Fresh, ripe tomatoes (processed as above)

2 Tbsp Olive Oil

1 cup of chopped, fresh onions

1/2 cup of grated zucchini (I shred & freeze mine so I have it to use when I need it)

1/2 cup of shredded carrots

3-5 cloves of Garlic sliced thin

2 teaspoons of oregano

4 teaspoons of basil

2 bay leaves

1 teaspoon sugar

Instructions:

1. Pour Olive oil in bottom of crock, spread out the onions.
2. Spread zucchini over onions (or drop frozen cubes around)
3. Spread out carrots
4. dump in peeled tomatoes & garlic
5. Sprinkle spices over the tomatoes and stick the bay leaves down in it.
6. Cook on low for 8-10 hours
7. Stir, break up tomatoes further if need be
8. Cool & pour into quart ziplocks and freeze flat.

When ready to enjoy it, thaw a quart, add some cooked ground beef, ground turkey, or shredded chicken and serve over whole wheat pasta.   Yummers!!!

Thank you Grandma Ringer (95 yrs old) for taking the time to teach me to cook with handfuls, and a love of the art of cooking that many have never been taught.  I love you!