Eating local in the winter has always been an enigma to me. Where do you find local produce during the New England winter? I really let snow, harsh temperatures and a lack of understanding come between my family and the tastiest local foods.

But earlier this summer, I had an epiphany — it’s not about finding local food, it’s about preparing to have local food all year. It take more effort, more foresight and more work to eat locally all year … but it’s so worth it.

That’s why I was happy thrilled to buy a big crate of tomatoes at the farmer’s market this weekend. They weren’t the prettiest fruits, but they were fresh, local and ready to be processed. I spent the weekend, peeling, seeding, processing and cooking the tomatoes into a garden marinara and tomato paste using recipes from Preserving Summer’s Bounty: A Quick and Easy Guide to Freezing, Canning, and Preserving, and Drying What You Grow. I bought this book several years ago when I first developed an interest in canning. At the time, I didn’t really like the broadness of it and I ended up buying another book. However, I’ve grown to love it. The recipes are reliable and you can find a little of everything in it. Who knew I would eventually want to can more than just jam?

Anyway, back to the tomatoes.

Twelve half-pints of marinara and four cups of paste later, we are set for the next couple of months — on pasta, at least. But these are joining the Roasted Herbed Carrots and frozen strawberries, as well as the four half-pints of strawberry jam just waiting to be eaten. I have also roasted a lot of tomatoes.

It hasn’t been a perfect haul. We will still need other veggies to help us make it through the dreary doldrums of winter, but when it starts to get to be too much, I need only toss some roasted tomatoes from the freezer with a little olive oil and pasta to feel refreshed.

Do you do any putting up for winter?

One of my goals for this year is to extend our local eating for as long into the winter as we can. I’ve done this hear and there in the past, putting up jams and relishes and freezing pestos and sauces, but this year I want a more comprehensive effort. As fruits and vegetables hit their peak, the kids and I will be gathering them, making some for the family to eat now and processing the rest to be stored for the winter months. First up: strawberries.

After picking strawberries last weekend, I quickly set about to use all the berries we brought home. When you pick as much as I did (somewhere between 10-12 lbs of berries … mmmm!), you have to do something with them quickly so that they don’t go to waste.

I immediately started work on jam for the winter (and a little for the summer too), which is a two-day process for my favorite canned version. About 12 cups of strawberries went into jam making using two recipes — four half-pints of my favorite fresh strawberry jam recipe and about a cup of fresh strawberry jam using a Cooking Light recipe. The Cooking Light recipe cooked way faster than it was supposed to, so that came out much thicker than I anticipated. But it’s still very tasty.

Next came some strawberry sauce, which we’ve been eating on pancakes and waffles all week. In fact, the picture above is the kids eating waffles with strawberry sauce on the front porch. Mmm.

Finally, I froze about eight cups of berries for the winter months. Locally grown strawberries taste so much better than the ones you buy in the store, so freezing local berries means that we can have fantastic tasting berries all year wrong … and not settle for what’s available. At first blush, I questioned whether this would be enough berries to last through the winter — and truth be told, I am still playing with the idea of picking some more — but I realized that we will also be storing peaches, apples, raspberries, blueberries and more (if all goes according to plan!), so we will have a big variety to eat from and don’t necessarily need tons of one type of fruit.

What do you think? Would you store more than eight cups of strawberries, given the opportunity?

How to Freeze Fresh Strawberries

1. Wash and hull the strawberries.

2. Line a baking sheet with waxed paper, making sure that the waxy side is facing up. Place the strawberries hulled side down on the baking sheet in a single layer. Make sure that the berries don’t touch.

3. Place the baking sheet in the freezer and let freeze overnight. Transfer frozen berries to a resealable plastic bag and return to the freezer for storage. Make sure to label the bag with the date and contents.

Recipes for Fresh Strawberries

• Strawberries and Cream Whole Wheat Crepes at Sarah’s Cucina Bella
• Whipped Strawberry Cream at Sarah’s Cucina Bella
• Strawberry Kiwi Fool at Sarah’s Cucina Bella
• Strawberry Sauce at Sarah’s Cucina Bella
• Chocolate Covered Strawberries at Sarah’s Cucina Bella
• Strawberry Balsamic Vinaigrette at FitSugar
• Fresh Strawberry and Ricotta Tart at Serious Eats
• Joan Ohm’s Fresh Strawberry Pie at Culinate
• Lemon Cupcakes with Fresh Strawberry Centers at Coconut & Lime
• Fresh Strawberry Scones at The Way the Cookie Crumbles
• Fresh Strawberry Tartlets at The Providence Journal

The kids and I and two of my friends went strawberry picking yesterday afternoon. So what that it was raining? So what that the skies clued us in that this was a rain that wasn’t going to just pass … It just didn’t matter. We all wanted the berries and nothing was standing in our way.

In past years, the coming of rain would have  (and did) scared my friends and I away from the strawberry fields. But perhaps we are just older and wiser now. Or maybe we were just too fixated on our plans. Whatever the case, when two of my friends arrived from New York on Saturday afternoon, it didn’t matter a smidge that it was starting to drizzle. We packed into the car and headed to Jones Family Farm, a local pick-your-own farm.

When we arrived, we found that we weren’t the only crazy folks taking to the fields for some speed picking (seriously, how else would you do it in the rain?). I can’t tell you exactly how much we picked, but I can tell you that the big, red, rosy berries have the sweetest, juiciest, most luscious flesh … They are beauties.

Have you picked this year? If you are in the northeast, hurry to the fields! Strawberry picking has but a short, short season here of just a few weeks and we are about a week and a half into it already, so time is of the essence. And if you go, remember to pick enough berries to process into all sorts of delicious jams, pies, cakes and other delights. They are just too good to pass up (and seriously, nothing you will ever buy in a grocery store can compare.)

Traveler’s Lunchbox had a great pictorial this week on creating homemade vanilla extract and suggested it would make a good holiday gift. Did I run right out to Williams-Sonoma and pay an arm and a leg for some vanilla beans? NO! I ordered them from eBay.

Now, I just need to find a jar to brew the stuff in and I am all set … until bottling time in December, that is.

And you gotta love that this was made with local apples that we picked ourselves at Blue Jay Orchards in Bethel, Conn., this weekend. Yay for local eating! And psst! If you go to Blue Jay, be sure to stop in the store and pick up some of their addicting cider donuts. MMmmmmmmm.

1 cup water
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/2 cup honey
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp cloves
12 medium apples (I used a mix of Ida Red and Empire)

In a large and heavy pot, combine the water, lemon juice, honey, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves. Stir until well combined.

Next, prepare the apples. Peal, core and cut them into chunks. Mix each chopped apple into the pot as you finish cutting to prevent browning.

When all the apples are cut and mixed into the pot, turn on the stove to medium heat. Cover and cook for about 15 minutes, until apples are soft. Remove from heat.

Use a potato masher (the kind with a flat bottom) to mash the apples into the juices. Store as desired. These can be refrigerated for a few days, frozen or canned.

To Can: Spoon the applesauce into five hot, scalded 1/2 pint containers leaving 1/2 inch of headroom. Process in a water bath for 15 minutes and then let cool on a rack or heat-proof plate before storing.

And you gotta love that this was made with local apples that we picked ourselves at Blue Jay Orchards in Bethel, Conn., this weekend. Yay for local eating! And psst! If you go to Blue Jay, be sure to stop in the store and pick up some of their addicting cider donuts. MMmmmmmmm.

1 cup water
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/2 cup honey
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp cloves
12 medium apples (I used a mix of Ida Red and Empire)

In a large and heavy pot, combine the water, lemon juice, honey, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves. Stir until well combined.

Next, prepare the apples. Peal, core and cut them into chunks. Mix each chopped apple into the pot as you finish cutting to prevent browning.

When all the apples are cut and mixed into the pot, turn on the stove to medium heat. Cover and cook for about 15 minutes, until apples are soft. Remove from heat.

Use a potato masher (the kind with a flat bottom) to mash the apples into the juices. Store as desired. These can be refrigerated for a few days, frozen or canned.

To Can: Spoon the applesauce into five hot, scalded 1/2 pint containers leaving 1/2 inch of headroom. Process in a water bath for 15 minutes and then let cool on a rack or heat-proof plate before storing.

How?

Chop ingredients like onions, carrots, peppers and potatoes or mince garlic over the weekend. Then use your FoodSaver to seal the bag. Store it in your fridge until you are ready to use it.

Think of all the prep time that will save!

There are many, many ways to make tomato sauce from fresh tomatoes. Some like to blanch the tomatoes for easy skin removal. Others remove the seeds as well. Some people do neither. I particularly like the flavor the tomatoes take on when roasted and the ease of cooking too. Plus, the skins practically jump right off.

I highly recommend lightly salting this. It will impart a more tomato-y flavor that can be adapted into other sauces (I am already dreaming of a spicy veggie filled sauce and Shawn has used one portion for a delectable meat sauce too).

Oh, and don’t be fooled by the two-day process. It isn’t as time consuming as it sounds. Really. I mean it.

Roasted Tomato Sauce
yields 16-18 cups of sauce

about 10 lbs tomatoes (can be seconds)
1/4 cup olive oil
1 extra large sweet onion, diced
1 bulb garlic, cloves removed and crushed
1 cup dried Italian seasonings
4 cans tomato paste, mixed with equivalent amount of water
salt, to taste
1 tbsp sugar

Day One: Roast the tomatoes.

Wash tomatoes and place them side by side in a baking pan (deep is better, though a foil lined jelly roll pan can work too).

Broil on high for 15 minutes on each side.

Spoon juices into a bowl or pan and set aside. Remove tomatoes and let cool (covered) for a few hours. Once tomatoes are cool, slip them out of their skins, remove stems and blemishes, and crush half of them. The other half, remove the skims and stems only. Place all the tomatoes into a large pot or covered bowl. Strain reserved juices (plus any juices from the bowl you cooled the tomatoes in) into the bowl with the tomatoes.

Refrigerate overnight.

Day two: Make the sauce

In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium. When hot, add the onions and garlic, stirring frequently. Cook until onions are translucent – 5-8 minutes.

Remove from heat and spoon mixture into a food processor. Process into a paste.

In a large stock pot, combine the roasted tomatoes, the onion mixture and the Italian seasonings. Stir well.

Whisk together tomato paste and water. Add to the stockpot.

Set stove on medium-low and bring the sauce to a rolling boil (be sure it’s either covered with the lid ajar or that you are using a splatter guard. What a mess!). Stir frequently while boiling for 30 minutes.

Add salt (not too much though, you can always resalt in small batches later) and sugar. Stir well.

Reduce heat to low and cover. Simmer for 3-4 hours. Remove from heat.

Let cool to lukewarm before storing. Freeze in tightly covered containers.

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Psst! September is an Eat Local Challenge month! How better than to prepare for a winter of eating local by making fresh tomato sauce with local tomatoes?

Frozen berries can be used the same as fresh berries once thawed. And it’s a super treat to have fantastic quality blueberries in the dead of winter.

1) Wash the blueberries and let them drain well. Get them as dry as you can.
2) Spread the blueberries in a single layer in a freezer safe container. Leave them their until they are completely frozen.
3) Transfer blueberries to a freezer bag, such as a Zip-loc or a FoodSaver. Remove air and place back in the freezer until you are ready to use them.