Why Women Stayed Home Back in the Day

I cooked a great Eggplant Parmesan the other night with homemade tomato sauce.  Yes, homemade with 4 lbs of tomatoes!  I was so busy cooking that I didn't think about taking pictures. Then I was going to take a pic of the leftovers, but we shared with my neighbor and I totally forgot again and now it is all gone. Must have been pretty good--a whole 10x15 pan gone.  I like when grown ups enjoy my meals, but there is nothing better than watching a little one (17 months) really enjoy the food you are feeding them.

This fresh, healthy eating thing is time consuming.  The prep was fairly easy--not as easy as opening up a can.  Cutting and seeding the tomatoes took the longest and peeling the skin was easy; but the clean up!  Geez, I felt like I was in the kitchen all night cleaning!

No wonder women stayed home back in the day--fresh cooking is time consuming work.  I think we've been "sold a bill of goods".  This working and doing the cooking and the housework is a bad deal.  I enjoyed the process of making the meal, and next time the clean up will be easier.  In fact, the whole process will be easier next time. We do have some advantages that women long ago didn't have--like blenders and food processors.

Next time I am not seeding the tomatoes and I will puree them in a blender as well.  I need to find a way to reduce the amount of time fresh cooking takes and the clean up too.  I will also use more cutting boards.  I used way too many bowls for peeling and seeding the tomatoes.  Cutting boards are easier and faster to clean and dry.

I really enjoyed making the sauce, but I think to make it more of a habit than buying the sauce from the store, I will need to make larger batches when the prices of tomatoes are good and learn how to can.  I'll talk about canning soon.

Here is how to make homemade tomato sauce: Click here for a printable copy.

1 medium pot or stock pot
4 lbs of Tomatoes (I got the tomatoes that were on sale)
Boiling Water
Bowl of ice water (I hear you can use plain old cold water too)
4 T olive oil (or any other oil you prefer)
1 onion
2 carrots
4 cloves garlic
2 stalks of celery

Slice an X in bottom of the tomatoes (practically makes the tomatoes peel themselves).  Put tomatoes in water for 30 seconds to a minute (I split it in three portions).  Take the tomatoes out of the boiling water and put them into the ice bath.  Peel the skins from the tomatoes.

If you want to remove the seeds (I hear they can be bitter--but I am trying it without seeding next time) slice the tomatoes in half for oblong tomatoes and in quarters for round tomatoes.  Then pull out the seeds over a strainer and bowl to capture extra juice (I got between a half cup and 3/4 doing it that way). I also used a cutting board that had grooves around the edges to capture juices.

Heat the oil.

Puree the onion, celery, carrots and garlic (you can use half the seasonings that I did) and put them into the oil to saute for about 10 minutes. (You can also add other spices as you would a finished sauce, but I did it at the end. Next time I will use the sauce in my chili and will add some Jalapeno, Serrano and Habanero (1) peppers with the puree.)

Then add the pureed or sliced tomatoes and the salt.  (You can mash them with a masher in the pot too for a chunkier sauce.)

Cook for 45 minutes (could be as little as 30, but I cooked mine for an hour) over medium low heat.

Eat away!