The marinara is here. Last issue I promised it in a form you can keep in the pantry, and it is waiting for you a little further down. The other thing that happened this week is cast iron. I posted about my pans and the comments filled up with grandmas' skillets and pans older than I am. Good week to be a greenhorn.
Cast iron week
I posted about why I love my cast iron and it hit home. Just over five thousand of you watched it on Instagram alone, and the comments were better than the post. One of you is 65 and still cooks on Grandma's cast iron, a Wagner and a couple of Griswolds. Another has a skillet on its third generation, handed from grandma to dad in 1988 and passed down again in 2013. One more of you is hunting for a rusty old pan to restore because new ones cost real money. That is the whole idea. Buy it once, season it, cook on it for fifty years, hand it down. The full video is on YouTube if you missed it.
This week on YouTube
There is a new video up with an update on the app, plus one joke I will not apologize for. A few of you asked in the comments where to find the app, and the link is below in this issue. Watch the update here.
Mom's marinara, for the pantry
Last issue I promised Mom's marinara in a form you can put up and keep on the shelf. Here it is.
The sauce itself is simple. Onion, garlic, and mushrooms cooked down in olive oil. Basil, oregano, a little ground red pepper if you like heat. Crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, and water to the thickness you want. A tablespoon of sugar, or two finely shredded carrots instead. Simmer 45 to 60 minutes. The full recipe is in the app under Sauces.
Now the honest part. As written, that is a fridge and freezer sauce. The onions, mushrooms, and oil bring the acid down too far to trust a water bath. So the pantry version splits the work in two.
Put up the base. Tomatoes, paste, and the dried herbs, simmered thick. Bottled lemon juice goes in every jar, one tablespoon per pint, two per quart. Process in a water bath for the time your canning guide gives for tomato sauce at your altitude.
Finish it fresh. The night you open a jar, cook the onion, garlic, and mushrooms in olive oil, pour the jar over, simmer ten minutes, and sweeten at the end. Ten minutes to the table from a jar you made yourself.
One more thing straight from her directions. Lay a wooden spoon across the pasta pot and it will not boil over.
In the app
A few of you asked under the update video where to find it. The app is Garden-to-Table Companion on the App Store. This week's update went after the gap between knowing a chore exists and getting it done. The daily plan and the garden calendar now make unfinished work easier to see and act on. There is a new Plant Health flow, so when a plant looks wrong you can go from a photo of it to careful next steps instead of guessing. And daily recipe ideas and a season photo timeline connect what the garden is doing to what the kitchen is making.
From the comments
Under the cast iron video one of you wrote, "I started watching for the great content but it's the corny puns that keeps me coming back." Noted. The puns stay.
One ask this week. When you put up your first jars of the marinara base, reply and tell me how many. The best jar counts get a mention in a future issue.
Most watched this week: the cast iron post, the cast iron video, and the app update.