Frugal Friday - Make it Yourself

We recently got a ton of tomatoes from our CSA.  Well, a ton of tomatoes and this...

The tomatoes actually weren't in the best shape, so I needed to use them up... quick!  My neighbor mentioned  using his lot of tomatoes to make tomato sauce, so I thought I would to!  You know, being disorganized and letting things go to waste drives me crazy, so creativity is key!

Not too long ago a task like this would have totally overwhelmed me... the whole peeling and seeding of a tomato seemed like crazy hard work, especially when a can of tomatoes isn't that expensive.  But, I've got to tell you folks, it's not hard at all!  See?

So, after the boiling, shocking, peeling and seeding, I added a diced onion, a head of garlic, a head of (de-veined) rainbow swiss chard, a handful of fresh basil from our garden and some olive oil and let it all simmer until soft.

If this yumminess was for me, I wouldn't have blended it.  I prefer a chunky sauce, but my kids tend to pick out all of the good-for-you veggies when it's chunky, so I blended everything up to oblivion... no picking out allowed!

My taste tester (and sous chef) approved!

We used some of our sauce immediately to make matzah pizza... we use these crackers for just about everything around here.  I usually add spinach to our lunch time pizzas, but I had just loaded the sauce with swiss chard, so I didn't want to push it. In hindsight, it would have been fine.  The  sauce has no real swiss chard taste...

The rest of the sauce was frozen to be used at a later date... We're pretty stocked!

I seem to have (inadvertently) focused lately on a lot of items that you can make, instead of purchase, to save money.  Here's a list of featured items:
- Desserts
- Natural Cleaners
- Laundry Detergent
- Smoothies
- Yogurt
- Trail Mix
- LaraBars
- Baby Food (I still can't read this post without laughing, then shaking my head in shame)
- Granola
- Pancake Mix (like Bisquick)

For more great ideas on ways to save money, head over to Life as Mom.