[quote=UCGal][quote=Blogstar]I used parmesan from Wisconsin today in the pesto, buy it in bulk and it sits in the freezer quite well. It tastes great! Grew the basil, that will definitely pay taxes on my next Oreo shake. I freeze the pesto for winter along with Spaghetti sauce for the kids, made with tomatoes, peppers and onions I grew. There is enough of both to have it every other week with leftovers. Most stay at home parents probably don’t do this stuff but I do.

There are about 75 bottles of frozen watermelon juice in there too, organic all not taxed.

How much could you save making your own Oreo shakes?[/quote]

Hijack alert –

Russ – how are you packaging the pesto and tomato sauce. Are you going through the full canning process? Using zip lock bags?

We have a boatload of tomatoes and a boatload of basil this year. We’ve been trying to keep up with Pesto pizza, pesto pasta, etc… but we want to freeze some too. Same with red sauces – we’ve been making batches 2-3 times a week. More than we can consume – so we’ve been giving sauces to neighbors. But we’d like to set some in for the winter.

Costco has a great deal on ball jars for canning. I looked online for how to can tomato sauces and it looks like, because of the acidity, etc, it’s more involved than typical canning. Not just a hot bath – but a pressure cooker is needed. I’m not ready to buy another appliance. We do have a big/deep steamer pot that we can use for a water bath. Any tips?

Edited to add:
We’ve had great luck doing a blanch and ziplock freeze for other garden veggies like green beans. But I’m new to the canning process. Our sauces have really become awesome this year – and I’d love to be able to have them in the winter.[/quote]

Hi UCGAL, I have wondered how much you all might be gardening now.

This pesto is complete, (some people just pulverize and freeze the leaves). It goes into regular zip lock baggies and I kind of roll those and squeeze that air out and then 4 or five of those go into a heavier duty quart freezer bag, so double wrapped. The food processor makes enough for one of these setups per batch. 5 cups leaves, 1 cup cheese , 1 cup nuts, about 1 cup olive oil, 9 teaspoons garlic and salt and pepper to taste. (watch out for salt in cheese from Wisconsin!).

Spaghetti sauce is complete too with meat or vegetarian but all you have to do is heat it up. Just food process tomatoes skin and all and cook the sauce for about an hour with added organic paste from Costco if needed. We put it in half full gallon freezer bags and use loaf pans to give it shape until it freezes solid.

We have a chest freezer and two combos, so canning is not urgent. We have even frozen beets and made borscht later on and shredded zukes and pureed pumpkin for bread in winter, It works great. Sun dried tomatoes freeze nicely too, for that pesto dinner in January or for soups. Ever check the price of sun dried tomatoes?

I bought a canning book and some stuff but so far have only done two huge jars of refrigerator pickles, They last for up to 90 days so with our long growing season you could have pickles half of the year without canning. I would like to do some kimchee type stuff ….seemingly a little more advanced, but it is supposed to be really good for you to eat fermented stuff. I’ll bring some to the next pigg meetup.