With the slow garden production this year, canning and preserving has been "one jar at a time"
Tomatoes were put into bags in the freezer until I had enough to preserve. Three one-gallon bags cooked down to three pints of sauce and two pints of ketchup. The red ketchup tastes really good, and I thought the yellow ketchup would be good as well, but it has an off taste. I'll probably try to make it into a barbecue sauce for chicken or pork. There has been only one lonely jar of dill pickles for the refrigerator.
But......
See what I picked yesterday! All in one picking! I might get to, like, actually can a few jars!
:( I have been freezing mine for the exact same reason. Just not enough to make but a jar of sauce here/there. But it looks like you might be doing some real soon!!
ReplyDeleteIt looks like you going to have a busy day of canning ahead! Yahoo!
ReplyDeleteCongrats on getting tomatoes Granny! You can do the "can can" and all of us in Irene's path can get ready for the storm!
ReplyDeleteThat's quite a load of tomatoes! Last week I brought in about 15 pounds of tomatoes (mostly very large ones), but this week they have slowed down quite a bit. The plants are starting to lose their leaves at the bottom of the vines, but they are still bushy and green at the top. They are still flowering and producing. Is there something I should be doing?
ReplyDeleteEnjoy your canning!
Wow! no rest for the weary..don't you wonder why they didn't get here sooner :o) ..guess it's better late than never :o)
ReplyDeleteGood morning, all. I've peeled and diced enough tomatoes for a canner full, and I can't get the stupid ceramic stove hot enough to boil the water! The diced tomatoes are going to be mush by the time that water bath heats up, if it ever does. :-(
ReplyDeleteWhen I bought the cook top, I made the decision on the brand because it had a special burner for canning. OK, it's large enough. They didn't say it wouldn't heat up enough. It just keeps turning on and off. I'm not a happy camper....er, canner.
I wish I could send you mine I picked this morning! I'm afraid they'll go to waste since I'll be without power tomorrow LOL
ReplyDeleteErin, I wish you could too! I finally got the water bath to boil, but my "diced" tomatoes were "crushed" tomatoes by that time, so I ended up with too much juice and just half a canner full of tomatoes. I'm boiling the rest down for sauce.
ReplyDeleteDo you have any sort of outside fire pit or BBQ that you can use, Granny? If you are water bathing, then you only have to boil it, and you won't have temperature control issues.
ReplyDeleteMaybe you should try Tomato BOOZE. With the summer we've all had, and the luck you're having canning, that might come in mighty handy!
ReplyDeleteKris, it will work fine, I just have to start the water boiling sooner than I did today. Using a ceramic cook top requires a bit of learning!
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Sue, I could have turned the rest of the tomatoes into Bloody Marys, but I went for spaghetti sauce for the freezer instead ;-)
Langela, I missed your question about the tomato plants. Just feel lucky they are still green and blossoming on the tops, many of mine are dying all the way up. You could clip off the lower leaves, but if you do be sure to take out a container of bleach and water for dipping your clippers. You don't want to spread the disease. That is, if you even have diseased plants. Some dying from the bottoms just happens at times.
ReplyDeleteMy tomatoes are just about done. Part of me is really happy but the other part not so much.
ReplyDeleteDaphne, I wish I had planted more canning tomatoes. I'm not fond of Cherokee Purple, both for color and for texture. My Rutgers, which were what I was going to can, have given me a whopping two small tomatoes.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful tomatoes!
ReplyDeleteIs there anything special you do to the tomatoes or just stick them whole into the freezer? I'm starting to get some ripe ones and I'm excited!!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Vanessa.
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Holly, I put mine, whole with stem removed) on a tray in the freezer, and when they were frozen solid I transferred them to a gallon sized plastic bag. I made sauce & ketchup, so I just dumped the frozen tomatoes into a big pot and cooked them until soft, then I took a stick blender to them, then ran everything through a chinois. I returned the strained sauce to the pot and cooked it down until it was as thick as I wanted it. I haven't tried, but I guess you can take them out of the freezer and hold them under water to pull the peel right off if you want whole tomatoes.
Granny I know the feeling of a jar here a jar there. Even the green beans have been 3 or 4 pints at a time. Finally did 3 pints of tomatoes this week but those were off potted ones not the garden.
ReplyDeleteMy in laws have a ceramic stove top, and they had to relearn how to cook on it. It takes for-evuh to heat up and cool off. I don't know if I would have that much patience! Glad your tomatoes have finally started to produce. Gotta have those jars of homemade stuff!
ReplyDelete~~Lori
Wilderness, my green beans have been one bright spot in the garden, still coming on and the freezers are getting awfully full. I'll probably just freeze tomatoes and make sauce to can later, as it doesn't look like I'll be getting even as large a picking again that I got this week. All of the Brandywines are diseased and will be removed, so no tomatoes from them at all.
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Lori, I have a love-hate relationship with that cook top. It just bugs me that when I turn it to high the burner goes off and on and off and on...I want it ON! But a couple of times I've put something on high, then forgotten it for a bit, and it's never boiled anything over.