Tomatoes, Tomatoes, Tomatoes

The week before vacation I had to decide what to do with all the produce from the garden. There was only one real answer. Freeze it or can it.

I made a giant stock pot of vegetable soup using all of the fresh veggies that came out of the garden. You can find the recipe here. Yeild: 12 quarts.

I stewed all the tomatoes that came out of the garden the weekend before. Yeild: 12 quarts.

I canned the whole tomatoes that came out of the garden the Thursday before. Yeild: 7 quarts.

Everything else I sent to work with Steven to hand out to anyone at work who would take a bag. He took about 20lbs of tomatoes and gave them away. I just could not do any more with them. I was tired and still battling morning sickness.

When we came back from vacation Steven and I picked a 23 quart stock pot full. Tuesday Colby picked 2 grocery bags full.

This time I made spaghetti sauce and canned it in quart jars.

I was in the middle of scalding the tomatoes so that I could peel and seed them when I remember to get the camera and show y'all the process.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Put in the tomatoes and leave for 1 - 2 minutes. I had 3 pots like this one to scald 30lbs of tomatoes.

Using a slotted spoon remove the tomatoes from the boiling water and submerged them in a pan of ice water. You will have to add ice as the hot tomatoes cause the ice to melt quickly -as you can see in the photo my ice disappeared fast. Not only because of the hot tomatoes but because the kitchen at the back of the house is not air conditioned. It was over 100 degrees yesterday. Add to that steaming hot pots and you can imagine how hot my kitchen was.

Once the tomatoes are cooled (just a couple minutes) the skins will slip right off. Cutting them in half and giving them a good squeeze and the seeds will come right out.

Squeezing also yeilds plenty of juice. I always save this to a pan and strain out any seeds that might slip through the collander. This is the clear liquid that seeps out of fresh ripe tomatoes and is known not as tomato juice but tomato water. I'll show you why at the end.

This is the first pot of scalded tomatoes cut and seeded. This is a 16 quart stock pot and when Colby and I finished it was 3/4 full of tomato meat.

On medium heat we cooked the tomatoes until they started to extrude more juice. To the pot we added our own favorite ingredients for spaghetti sauce:

2 cups chopped onion (I only use sweet vidalia onions from Ga.)
8-10 cloves garlic, crushed
5 tbsp finely chopped basil
1 tbsp finely chopped oregano
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1 tbsp salt
1 tbsp fresh cracked black pepper

The sauce mixture simmered for approxiamtely one hour. During that time the jars ran through the dishwasher to sterilize.

The sauce was ladled into the hot jars right out of the dishwasher. Lids and rings were then screwed on hand tight.

The juice that came from the dripping tomatoes and the squeezing and straining of the seeds was brought to a boil and then poured into hot jars with lids and rings applied.

The jars went into the pressure canner where they were processed for 35 minutes at 10psi.

After processing the jars were removed from the canner and left to cool.

This morning the jars were cold to the touch and the lids had sealed. The tomato juice had separated so that you can see the real juice of a tomato, commonly known as tomato water. Shaking it will recombine the bits of tomato pulp and you can drink it or you can use it to poach fish in or to add to stock for soup or sauce. Many many useful things to do with tomato water.

The juice of the tomatoes in my jars in no way tastes like the tomato juice you buy in bottles at the store. Mine is not thick. It is not salty. It is not filled with preservatives or color additives. Tomato juice in its purest form is a delicious and refreshing drink by itself but you should try adding a dash of hotsauce and some vodka -the best Bloody. Mary. Ever.

Cost Analysis
Tomatoes from garden $0
Quart jars in stock $0
Herbs from garden $0
Spices in stock $0
Yeild: 5 quarts spaghetti sauce and 2 quarts tomato juice
Total cost $0

Being a frugal housewife pays off in so many ways!

-This winter we have our own fresh spaghetti sauce to enjoy.
-My kids will not be eating any preservatives or chemical additives.
-My sauce is 100% organic.
-The children learn a lesson of gardening, providing for yourself and NOT relying on commerically grown foods.
-They also get a lesson in food preservation.
-Steven gets to see my canner in action and how just turning the knob on the stove regulates the pressure in the canner.
-Shows him I can indeed adjust and keep that canner at 10lbs psi with little to no effort. (For the longest time Steven could not understand how I could regulate the the canner without different weighted vent regulator knobs.)

The weekend that I made the soup I also put a bushel of fresh white corn (Silver Queen) in the freezer. We ended up with 30 gallon bags of corn-on-the-cob. My kids love fresh corn and having summer goodness in the dead of winter sure is better than Green Giant nibblers. I am hoping this weekend to get 1 more bushel of corn to cream. Wish me luck!