When I started this blog 5 years ago, I really had no clue what I was doing.

I simply wanted to share recipes and encourage other people to live life locally.

Fast forward 5 years and there have been plenty of changes to both the way my blog looks and to how I write.

More & more I write about faith and less & less do I share recipes.

But more than anything, I have this desire to write but writing isn’t always my top priority.

I finally realized though, these thoughts in my head will never be more than just that: thoughts in my head…if I don’t do something about it and simply write.

So here’s my new goal: to write 2 blog posts a week. One post (perhaps on Tuesday’s?) will be deeper/reflective/insightful. The other post (hopefully on Friday’s) will be a fun fact I’ve learned, a quick recipe trick, a quote that was touching to me.

So there it is…perhaps writing down & publishing my goal will help me stay on track? I’ve never been great at habit setting. But if I want to be a better writer, if I want to grow as a writer, then I’ve got to take the first step and simply write more frequently.

Today’s First Friday Tidbit is all about making tomato sauce not have acidity.
Or at least lowering the acidity so it doesn’t cause heartburn.

I grew up on a farm so it should come as no surprise that I adore tomatoes.

In my mind, summer = tomato.

There’s tomato sandwiches on biscuits for breakfast, BLT’s for lunch, and caprese salad for dinner.

Then there’s the obligatory hours spent in the kitchen canning all those tomatoes so you can enjoy them in the winter.

It’s funny how adulthood rituals are often habits we learned in childhood.

I spent every summer of my childhood canning tomatoes and I’ll probably be spending my 38th birthday this month: canning tomatoes.

Until recently everytime I had spaghetti sauce or any dish with cooked tomatoes, the acidity would cause the worst heartburn/indigestion. A few years ago, I even went to the doctor because I was worried about chest pains. It’s a bit humiliating when she simply says: I think it’s just heartburn.

Recently at the library I checked out The Clever Cookbook by Emilie Raffa at The Clever Carrot and ya’ll….
did you know you could reduce acidity in tomato sauce type recipes by using butter instead of oil??

It’s the best discovery of 2016 for me!

Her tomato sauce recipe was so simple but SO GOOD. It’s basically just using butter in place of the olive oil I’d normally use but it changed the chemical makeup so drastically that I was licking the tomato sauce bowl clean.

I realize most of us think tomato sauce is very basic and you can’t imagine wanting to drink it. But I promise, her recipe is that good.

I used the trick earlier this week when I made spaghetti sauce and I had no problem with heartburn.

Simply use 2 – 3 TBSP of butter when sauteing onions or garlic before adding in canned tomatoes to make any tomato/spaghetti sauce dish less acidic.

It’s that easy ya’ll. Nothing complicated here in today’s Friday TidBit.

Thank ya’ll for reading my blog and being so encouraging! I hope you are able to find a cool place to be this weekend with temps in triple digits for many people. Thank God for air conditioning!