Making tomato sauce: I found out by accident how to make quicker tomato sauce without having to stand over a steaming pot, stirring, stirring and stirring some more. Ready? Quarter the tomatoes, cut out the core and any bad spots. Chunk 'em in gallon bags and freeze them. What happens is that freezing makes the water expand, bursting the cell walls. What that means for you is;
Peel plastic bag off the tomatoes and drop in a big pot, still frozen. Slowly heat on medium low heat. Here's the good part. The water cooks out first! Pour the water off, reserve in another pot. I did this with 2 1/2 gallon bags of frozen tomatoes and drained off 2 3/4 quarts of tomato water. This resulted in thicker tomatoes. I then strained out the seeds and skins (the chickens loved them) returned the sauce to a pot, heated and canned it. I could have cooked it down some more but I was happy with what I had. The point is, that I drained off almost 3 quarts of water that would have taken hours to cook off.
Remember I said to reserve the tomato water? I canned 2 quarts and used the 3/4 quart as the starting water in a pot of pinto beans. They were delicious!
Chicken broth. Cut meat off bones and freeze or can, whatever you are doing with it. Put the bones in a pot, cover with water and simmer for several hours. You can add a tablespoon of ACV to help draw out the nutrients of the bones, if you desire. I strain my broth. If it has a lot of fat floating on top, I refrigerate it over night and skim the congealed fat off, then reheat and can. You can toss in the neck, wings, and bony back pieces in your broth pot. Pick the meat off and freeze for chicken salad or can a jar of it.
I think I already told you how to make broth with the feet, if not, let me know. Home made broth from your own chickens is the BEST!
