Let me start out by sharing a concern of mine. I have mentioned to some of my mom friends that I worry Jonathan is going to come home one day and find me like this-
Sitting in the kitchen with a bonnet on churning butter so something.
The joke here is I am spending most of my time doing lots of domestic stuff. Not necessarily a bad thing, it messes with my mind at times though.
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Back to canning-
Tomato plants are pumping out some major fruit these days. It's a bitter sweet thing....
Sweet because, YAY!, we have lots of 'free' and tasty produce. Bitter because, yay, now I have to find something to do with it before it goes bad.
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| This lovely basket was hand made by Dad Trexler |
Thankfully, canning and preserving fresh tomatoes
IS NOT THAT HARD.
On a side note, raw whole tomatoes freeze great for later use in soups, stews and sauce. You don't even have to peel them. Once they thaw the skin slips right off.
Back to canning-
If you are canning fresh tomatoes alone, you
DO NOT need a pressure canner. Only a pot big enough to hold enough water to cover your jars. Last year I used a lobster pot (it was one of my New England welcome presents when I moved here). This year I actually have a pressure canner thanks to a birthday present. I recommend looking at the below websites for expert tips. This post is just to show you how easy it is if you are thinking about trying it.
Also those that already can, feel free to share your tips!
USDA tomato canning guidelines -
http://nchfp.uga.edu/publications/publications_usda.html
Pick Your Own website -
http://pickyourown.org/canning_tomatoes.htm
First set up your 'processing line', which should include:
- A boiling pot of water to blanche the tomatoes (big is good)
- A bowl of ice water to quickly cool the tomatoes
- A large pot for heating and crushing the tomatoes (if crushing)
- A large boiling pot for the water bath with enough water to cover the tops of your jars by an inch
- Cutting board
- Hot jar handling tools (I got a simple canning kit that included jar tongs and a hot lid picker upper, that has to be its name) but maybe you could improvise here if you don't have the tools.
- Ladle, strainer spoon, jar funnel and potato masher
- Lemon juice
Also get your jars HOT and clean. I do this just by putting them in the dishwasher through a washing cycle. They come out, like I said, hot and clean.
You will also need new canning lids for the jars. They are easy to find at the grocery stores or Walmart. I re-use my rings and jars each year but they recommend you use new lids for sealing reasons.
1. Blanche your tomatoes
just until the skin cracks.
2. Cool the tomatoes, slide the skins off and cut out the hard tops.
See so far not so bad-
The next steps are for canning crushed tomatoes. See the previously listed websites if wanting to can whole or cut up tomatoes.
3. Put some of the peeled whole tomatoes in an empty pot. Heat pot quickly and crush when hot. You want to crush when hot because the tomatoes (the pectin) start breaking down once they are cut or crushed. Heat deters the breaking down process. This breaking down causes separation (solids from the liquids) once in the jars. This doesn't affect anything, just give them a shake before use.
4. Cook crushed tomatoes for about 5 minutes.
5. Add proper amount of lemon juice into hot jars (see websites for amounts and reason why). I add 2 Tbsp for my quart jars.
6. Ladle into hot jars. Make a strange face (optional).
7. Place a warm lid (I warm them in hot, but not boiling, water) and tighten the ring onto the jar. Make sure lid seal and jar lip are CLEAN so to get a good seal.
8. Place in the boiling water bath.
9. Process/boil per recommended time. For quart jars its 45 minutes.
DONE!
See I had quite a bit of separation (for a known reason but not interesting enough to share). Like I said though, this doesn't affect taste or anything when using for cooking. It all gets remixed back together.
I used about 45 Amish Paste tomatoes (similar to Romas or Plums) and 5 large Brandywine tomatoes to get these 4 quarts.
I use our canned tomatoes for making sauce, soups and stews. Last year we discovered how amazing (and ridiculously quick and easy) making homemade tomato soup is. My favorite recipe here-
http://www.marthastewart.com/343299/creamy-tomato-soup
Just a note, Campbell's tomato soup second ingredient is High Fructose Corn Syrup. Not that I am against eating HFCS but prefer to limit it as much as I can.
OK, hope this was helpful.
