illdothedisheslater

Here is, perhaps, the prettiest picture I’ve ever taken:

Okay, maybe not that pretty, but ahhh.  So many of my favorite things, living in harmony like Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney. Granted some of the tomatoes are a little grungy looking, but that’s because they’re real. As in from someone’s garden – not picked before they ripen, packed, and shipped 2,000 miles. I guarantee they will taste better than anything Kroger’s has to offer – so who cares if you have to trim a little brown spot out? Fruit flies-schmuit flies. (Schmoot flies? Shmoot flies? “Schmuit” looks like a real word in another language, possibly German.) Turns out that spelling sarcastically is harder than it looks.

So what does “scratch” mean? I’ll give you the definition, because my husband and I agree that it’s a supremely lazy way to begin a topic, start a speech, or introduce the next presenter at the Oscars. “Webster’s defines an actor as…..blah dee blah…”  The Merriam Webster Dictionary (online) contains over twenty definitions, most involving some sort of bodily injury. The one dealing with cooking states,

: made from scratch : made with basic ingredients <a scratch cake>

That really leaves the door open doesn’t it? What constitutes a basic ingredient? Plants seem pretty basic, as do eggs. What about flour? Is that basic enough? I guess if you start with a field of wheat, flour begins to look pretty elaborate (according to Google, this is the antonym of “basic”). But anyone who has baked a cake that doesn’t start with a boxed mix from the grocery, can rightly claim that it’s from scratch. I’m only food snobbish in certain ways. For example no margarine is allowed inside my house – ever. I have never tried a recipe that calls for a can of cream-of-something soup. Pepper is better freshly ground, cheese freshly grated. But I’m not a crazy person and sometimes the Green Can of powdered cheese-food just hits the spot. But here is my favorite of the “scratch” definitions:

: to scrape together : collect with difficulty or by effort <scratch out a living>

Collect with difficulty!  Music to my earballs.

So my next project will be taking all these lovely tomatoes that have been donated or obtained at the farmers market, and turn them into something resembling tomato sauce. Like a really good thick sauce – not a lightly heated pile of vegetables in a thin tomato broth, but something Prego-like in consistency that will cling to the noodle of my choice. (I do not aspire to Prego because, well does anyone?)

(Do all the ellipses bother you? Too bad.  My blog.)

I’ve made scratch sauce with canned tomatoes – crushed, diced, pureed, etc. and it’s damn good, but this will be more…elaborate.

With the long Labor Day weekend stretching out in front of me, I have assembled my ingredients:

Tomatoes – beautiful, juicy, REAL tomatoes! Fresh garlic, yellow onion. Olive oil. That damned sea salt. Freshly ground pepper. There’s even a sprig of fresh oregano from my garden*, mostly thrown in for show.

So we’ll see what happens this weekend. Stay tuned.

*By garden, I mean the seven pots out on my deck. Two hold cherry tomato plants that so far this year have produced only six cherry tomatoes. One is manfully trying to squeeze out three more, and the other has been overtaken by spiders to the point where I may have to move. Pot number three holds a dying basil plant. I cannot grow basil. I cannot pay $4.00 for six flaccid leaves in a plastic package at the grocery store. I don’t know how to solve this dilemma. Pot number four grows weeds. A lot of weeds. It used to hold garlic, and I’m not sure why I don’t throw it out. Oh wait – laziness.

Seriously:  Who does this?  It’s actually eating garden utensils now.

Pots number five and six are my favorites – they hold oregano and sage, and despite heroic neglect, they continue to thrive. I have not watered them since 2011. Pot number seven is empty and blows around the yard whenever it storms. I don’t know why I keep it.  Maybe one day it will just blow away, to a happier home and a greener thumb.