On being a homemaker: cooking

After my fun filled afternoon at the local farmers market, I wanted to make homemade vegetable soup and spaghetti sauce. I've not tried these recipes before and wanted to venture into unknown territory. I couldn't find a recipe that sounded incredible, so I made up my own.

Here are some tips:
*When making spaghetti sauce, make sure that you read the labels in the grocery store well because you will want to buy tomato paste, but you might end up with several small cans of tomato sauce (like me.). You'll need tomato sauce, but just not 8 small cans of it. :)

*I put beans and ground beef in my vegetable soup. I realize that this is not common, but I was working with what I had. I used navy beans and kidney beans. However, navy beans take a very long time to cook...longer than the soup was going to cook. SO the navy beans were done, but not as well as they could have been. Also, the navy beans give the soup a dryer taste. Glad they make broth in a can :)

*Use fresh ingredients whenever possible. It really bring out the taste and it seems to blend better. (even fresh herbs)

*Side note: I did not use eggs in my soup or sauce, but I did learn that if you're going to hard boil an egg, it should be at least a week old...for acidity balance.

*Freezer storage bags work great to freeze food. Especially sauces. You don't have to worry about pressure cooking cans and they take up much less room. Make sure you have a marker handy to put the date and amount of the front of the bag.


I'm rather pleased with the turn out of my cooking adventure. I really love to try new things and figure out an easier way, a more fun way, or altogether different way. I ended up with 26 cups of veggie soup and 12 cups of spaghetti sauce. We've tried the soup and it was really good (if I may say so myself). I do wish that I would have written down my recipe :)

Being a homemaker allows me to do these things. I am blessed to be able to stay home. Plus, I won't need to buy spaghetti sauce or vegetable soup for months! What a great way to save money and to feed my family a healthy meal.