My dear sweet lovely Grandma passed away some years back now… It doesn’t feel that long ago… but then it seems like ages…

Grandma used to make the best tomato sauce… it really wasn’t like most tomato sauces… it was a little spicy… but not too spicy… it’s pretty famous in our family…

For the last few years before she died, my sister and I would make tomato sauce with her… These days are such sweet memories now… there would always be some of her beautiful piano playing too… she was an amazing pianist and taught my sister and I when we were kids, and then taught my kids when they were little too. I still tear up sometimes when I hear Fur Elise… except when it’s the Mr Whippy version!

But I digress… back to the sauce… my sister and I have tried to keep up the tradition of making Grandma’s tomato sauce… most years we manage it and when we don’t, we yearn for that delicious tomato sauce.

We have to tweak the recipe a little bit for me and my allergies these days… and that means two different batches… in three pots… because we don’t have two pots big enough. The one jumbo pot we do have was Grandmas…

We use Grandmas Meuli and funnel too… there’s something pretty special about that…

Tomato Sauce day is a big day… we started just before 8am and finished around 4pm… but boy did it fly… there may have been hysterical giggling involved too…

It didn’t all go smoothly! This is what happens when you are juggling two batches, three pots, bottles in the oven, and chatting away with your Sis… Burntarse pot… no great damage – the burnt flavour didn’t go thru it, we salvaged the sauce just in time… can’t say the same for the pot… it’s still soaking!

Those old vinegar bottles on the right have stored Grandma’s tomato sauce for as long I can remember… I was devastated when we bought more vinegar yesterday and found they now put it in plastic bottles. Man, progress has a lot to answer for sometimes! Luckily my hubby likes a few brands of Rum that happen to have nice bottles… he’s kindly offered to supply however many bottles I need! So generous!

And this my friends, is yours truly and my sweet sis… what a lovely day we had… keeping traditions… spending time… remembering grandma… and what a bonus it is we end up with a pantry stocked with delicious tomato sauce…

Do you have any family traditions you keep up? Do you still have grandparents around? Do you love homemade tomato sauce?

Wishing you a saucy weekend full of homemade goodness.