Gardening and Les's Tomato Sauce from Fresh Tomatoes 9/11/2011

I did some gardening today and ripped out weeds and cut back some of my flowers that were done blooming. They was a praying mantis on my one tomato plant so I took a picture of the praying mantis.  There are also many beautiful butterflies in my area right now, but it is hard to take pictures of them, because they fly away when I get near.  I did get a few pictures of the butterflies.

I am not sure how many more times I will be able to make Les’s sauce this year, because my tomatoes that are ripening are getting smaller, and grasshoppers are also starting to eat chunks out of some of the tomatoes before they get ripe enough.  I have made Les’s sauce many times this summer, but guess it soon will be over for this year.  I was at Steve’s home for some bakes in his WFO on Friday evening.  He still has many big San Marzano tomatoes on his plants.  Steve told me he is finished canning his San Marzanos  and is going to dig them under probably this coming week.  I asked Steve if he minded if I picked some of his San Marzano’s and took them home to make more Les’s sauce. He said I could pick all I wanted. I don’t know why Steve’s San Marzano tomatoes got bigger than mine, except Steve is a better gardener than I am and he pumps water from the creek to feed his tomatoes.  Well, it was off to making more Les’s sauce yesterday with Steve’s San Marzano tomatoes and some of my smaller ones.  Les’s sauce did turn out well again, (with added Great Value crushed tomatoes) and now I have almost 3 more quarts to freeze for later use this fall and winter to use on pizzas or other foods I prepare.  I really love to eat the fresh slowed baked tomatoes right after they come out of the oven.  They are naturally sweet and have such a good taste, at least in my opinion.  If anyone is interested, this is where I posted on pizzamaking.com about making Les's sauce differen times. http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,11539.0.html 

Norma