I have had a very productive weekend.  Following on from yesterday’s post about the Tabasco sauce I wanted to show you my other achievements in the kitchen.

The bell chillies were dried and the 4 trays of sliced chillies ended up reducing to this.

I then ground them in the spice grinder attachment for my food processor.

This is what I ended up with.  45g of powdered chilli – grown about 20 metres from the back door with no chemical sprays.  The smaller jar is the residue after I had sieved it mixed with some avocado oil.  I will use the chilli oil to add a little bit of flavour when cooking.

Today we went to the Caboolture Markets.  I bought the fruit and vegetables that I needed as well as 9kg of tomatoes.  These were being sold for 99c/kg so I filled my Ecosilk bag.

I decided to make tomato pasta sauce that I will be able to use in a variety of ways.  The ingredients are tomatoes, onions, basil, tomato paste and red wine.  The onions were from our crop last winter which were diced and frozen, the basil from the garden, tomato paste and red wine from the cupboard.

I forgot to take any photos as I was working flat out to get this done this afternoon but here is the end result.

The sauce in the plastic containers will be frozen and the jars of sauce were processed in a hot water bath so they will be stored in the cupboard.  This was my first attempt at processing anything in a hot water bath.  I am confident that it has worked well as the pop-tops have all been vacuum sealed.

I am definitely going to do some more research and learn more about this method.  It means that I can preserve food without using the freezer and being reliant on a consistent supply of electricity.  There is also a small matter of available space in the freezer, too.

Any tips or recommendations of resources on preserving would be appreciated.