I feel like I spent all weekend cooking. It was cool enough out that it wasn’t such a miserable thing to do.

Saturday I made a peach pie, with Colorado peaches (my favorites). Denny sides with Missouri peaches, but I haven’t seen those in the stores this year, and the Colorados have just come in. The pie turned out really well. I was pessimistic about the crust (it was very humid out, which made for a sticky dough, and I was trying to listen to Alton Brown and not add too much additional flour). Denny later reminded me that I’m always pessimistic about the crust and it almost always turns out well.

Such was the case here. It turned out really well. You know how fruit pies can sometimes get a soggy, underdone bottom crust? I followed the advice of the Cooks Illustrated baking cookbook and preheated a hot oven (500F) with a cookie sheet in it on the lowest rack, the baked the pie in a glass dish on the hot cookie sheet. The temp gets reduced twice during the cooking process—once when you first put it in and another time halfway through.

This technique not only prevented the bottom of my oven from getting covered in burned-on peach spew, but it also made the bottom crust set up really nicely.

On Sunday, I went out between rain showers and picked as many tomatoes as I could lift in a bowl. I filled a huge stockpot with the tomatoes, onions, garlic, and bay leaves, and I let it simmer all freaking day. The house smelled great.

HINT: if you are making a giant batch like that, don’t bother blanching and shocking the tomatoes to remove their skins, and certainly don’t squeeze out the goo. It’s just not worth the effort, and it’s healthier to leave them in anyway (more fiber, doncha know). I smoothed mine out with a stick blender, but you could use a regular blender too, although you have less control over the texture.

If you’re really horrified by tomato seeds or the occasional tomato skin bit, you could strain it, but I didn’t bother. I just put it in containers and threw it in the chest freezer. Come winter, I’ll be able to do all kinds of cool stuff with it: add veggies, hot pepper, and maybe sausage for a nice pasta sauce…puree, strain, and add some sour cream for tomato soup…add a little tomato paste to tighten it up for pizza sauce…perhaps MORE?

I love having an arsenal of tomato sauce in my freezer.