Crock Pot + Tomatoes = Knitting

Knitters never have enough time. Most of us have enough yarn, in fact most of us belong to SABLE (stash acquired beyond life expectancy). We have enough knitting needles to have at least six projects going at the same time. We have books, and patterns. We have notions, gadgets, and the Internet. Time, however, is at a premium for most of us.

Now that it is dark when I leave in the morning for work, and dark when I come home I have lost precious knitting time. Isn't that why we commute? To have the time to knit?

We grab time wherever we can find it. Me, I grab it when doing other stuff around the house.

Take these tomatoes ...

These are so ripe, in fact, past slicing stage. They are ready for tomato sauce.

Here is the plan. Have dinner cooking in the crock pot, leave work right at 4:00 (instead of working overtime), and get home to do tomato sauce.


What does this have to do with knitting? You'll see. Just follow this tutorial on preserving tomato sauce when you have an over abundance of tomatoes.


Wash the tomatoes, remove the stems, and quarter them. Put into a big pan, like a big stock pot.
No need to peel the tomatoes. You'll see.

After the tomatoes have been washed and quartered, you start adding some other vegetables you have in the fridge.

Like onions, celery, and of course, garlic. This gets washed and cut into chunks.

Put the other veggies into the pot. Turn the stove on low to let things cook REAL SLOW. Admire the pot of beautiful veggies, knowing that everything except the celery was grown organically in your own garden.

Go outside and check the weather. Note that it is 68 degrees on October 22nd, five days after a horrible wind storm and torrential rains.

Look and admire the beautiful fall colors of the trees and shrubs in your yard, and note how the sun makes things glow.

Go back into the kitchen to check the pot, and then pour yourself a glass of wine, and grab your knitting (see where I'm going with this?).

Sit, sip, and knit, while admiring the lovely evening, knowing that your tomatoes are cooking nicely and quietly on the stove.

Check the pot occasionally, stir it up a bit, and then go back outside to sit, sip and knit.

While in the kitchen, check out dinner cooking in the crock pot. It's all done. Nothing like pot roast. All you will have to do is put it on the service plates.

Go back outside, and sit, sip and knit.

Note the pot of tomatoes is simmering nicely. Everything is cooking together as it should.

Go outside, sit, sip and knit and have a coherent conversation with the wonderful man you married, who isn't asking why you are taking all of these pictures.

Continuing sitting, sipping and knitting, while taking brief trips to the kitchen to check the tomatoes cooking nicely on the stove.

Serve the dinner that is already cooked.

After dinner, bring out the Squeezo Strainer.

Take the now cooked tomatoes and run them through the Squeezo.

Be amazed (again) how wonderful the Squeezo is that your Mom bought you 27 years ago so you would make your babies applesauce (which I refused to do with the Foley food mill -- urg!)

The juice and pulp come through the Squeezo and all of the seeds, celery strings, and skins of the tomatoes and onions end up as waste in the little plastic cup.

Stand back and admire the lovely tomato sauce you have made in a matter of a couple of hours. Off to the fridge for an overnight stay for the sauce.

It will be put back on the stove again to simmer down to thicken and then preserved in the pressure cooker.

That's for another blog.

And I got some wonderful, precious knitting time. Something all of us knitters need more of.

Sue