Canning Tomatoes

 

Since we have been completely out of spaghetti sauce, which my two kids go through at a rapid pace, canning some more of that was the first order of business. Awhile back, Leigh from 5acresandadream made a post about canning tomatoes that influenced me to change things up a bit. For many years, I have scalded off the skins and chunked up the tomatoes to cook down and then used a stick blender to puree them before canning. This method has worked well though my back always aches from leaning over the sink for hours at a time peeling skin and cutting out defects from very hot tomatoes. The seeds while not attractive, really have never bothered me. 

Leigh's method, and the one my mom used to use when I was little, is to simply cut out the defects while the tomatoes are raw and then cook them down and use a food mill to separate the skin and seeds from the pulp. I even had an old food mill that I have been carting around for years but have never used.

I found my food mill, very similar to the one above and got to work. I was quickly reminded how much work it is to use it especially when one is processing approximately 20 gallons of tomatoes. But after having completed the task, I do think it is easier than blanching and skinning the tomatoes and certainly reduces the number of pots and burners in use when processing tomatoes. The resulting skinless and seedless puree is a sight to behold. Another benefit is that by not blanching tomatoes first, less water gets introduced into them and so the cooking down process later to remove excess water is much reduced. This year I also mainly used paste tomatoes which contain less water further reducing down that process. Still, I got to thinking about a motorized alternative and after a quick google search, found that many exist and so I have ordered a cheaper one just to try out and see how well it works. Hopefully it will arrive before our next picking of tomatoes.

When we remodeled our kitchen before Covid, canning was very much in our minds during the design process. Gone was the microwave above the stovetop that didn't allow me to easily place jars into and out of tall canners. In was a pot filler to allow me to easily top off large pots without carrying the heavy pots over to the sink all the time. Also in was a larger stove top that could hold more pots and heat them quickly and a heavy duty exhaust hood that could easily remove the excess steam and heat. Above on the left is my canner which I've had for probably 20 years or more. On the right is my mom's old canner. Both work well though my mom's canner is definitely more expensive and better quality since it doesn't rely on a rubber gasket to keep in the pressure like mine does. But I keep my seal oiled and have yet to blow one in all these years... knock on wood. I don't use both canners very often but with this batch and having 54 jars waiting to be canned, it was worth the effort to lug the second one up from the basement storage shelf.

After cooking down the tomatoes most of the way, I added the onions, green peppers and the rest of the ingredients to it and then simmered for another hour before canning. I find canning tomato sauces much easier than fruits or vegetables with lots of liquid because I don't have issues with siphoning. I still have issues with my wide mouth jars putting the lid rings on at the right pressure to allow pressure to escape and yet not leak, but I'm getting better all the time. I only had a handful of lids buckle up from the pressure but they all went ahead and sealed. I ended up with 45 pints of spaghetti sauce this batch and I cooked down a crockpot of it to make 9 half pints of tomato paste. Next time, I am going to cook down the tomatoes first to the point of making sauce before adding them to the crockpot so that I can get more paste for all that effort. (Took about 30 hours of crockpot time this time around to make those 9 jars of paste.) I would like to reduce that time by half and get a lot more jars. 

This was my first big batch of tomatoes. I hope to do a couple more yet this year. I want to do another large batch of spaghetti sauce and one of pizza sauce, our two biggest uses for tomato products as well as quite a bit more paste. I may make a batch of tomato soup too as we really enjoy that on cold winter days. Today's project is to rearrange our canning storage shelves in the basement to get an inventory of what we have and what is needed so we can make sure we have plenty before starting to give away all our excess tomatoes instead of canning them all.