rainy day recipe

Today was the first weekend day in a long time where we weren't up and out the door for something-or-other. Don't get me wrong, it's always something relaxing that we want to do, but this weak little tropical storm that rolled through today made it a wash out sorta day. Of course, there would've been indoor stuff, but it felt good to stay in our jammies until noon.

We took advantage of the rainy-stir-crazy kinda day to use up all of our tomato crop to make homemade tomato sauce. It was wicked good, but lotsa effort. Sorta sweet and rich, nothing you'd be able to buy at the regular grocery. He added Bison meat, which was really tasty. He can't wait until it gets cold because he especially likes cold sauce.
Recipe from Allrecipes.com:

INGREDIENTS

• 10 ripe tomatoes
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 green bell pepper, chopped
• 2 carrots, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
• 1/4 teaspoon Italian seasoning
• 1/4 cup Burgundy wine
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 stalks celery
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste

DIRECTIONS

1. Bring a pot of water to a boil. Have ready a large bowl of iced water. Plunge whole tomatoes in boiling water until skin starts to peel, 1 minute. Remove with slotted spoon and place in ice bath. Let rest until cool enough to handle, then remove peel and squeeze out seeds. Chop 8 tomatoes and puree in blender or food processor. Chop remaining two tomatoes and set aside.
2. In a large pot or Dutch oven over medium heat, cook onion, bell pepper, carrot and garlic in oil and butter until onion starts to soften, 5 minutes. Pour in pureed tomatoes. Stir in chopped tomato, basil, Italian seasoning and wine. Place bay leaf and whole celery stalks in pot. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low, cover and simmer 2 hours. Stir in tomato paste and simmer an additional 2 hours. Discard bay leaf and celery and serve.

(J's addition: cook Bison/Buffalo meat and add while simmering)
Aiden nearly begged to go in "mama's car" to the grocery. He was giddy as we ran in and out of the car through the rain. Once he finds his giggles they stick around for a while, so we had fun at the grocery. I couldn't get over that I got all of these groceries for just a little over $24! I even bought kinda pricey sesame stickers for potty time Aiden. Incredible coupons for Stop and Shop - They just give you dollars in the form of newsprint! It occured to me the other day how much packaging changes (when Ikea announced they were getting rid of their Futura font for the web friendly Verdana), and it might be fun to look back on some of this stuff years from now, so I took a photo.