Up to this point, we've been talking about growing tomatoes in the garden, but today we are going to look at what to do with the harvest.
Generally speaking, were going to look at the order in which we can various tomato products and what to do with them afterward.
So the moment has come that you have far more tomatoes coming in from the garden than you can eat fresh. The counters are rapidly filling up and if you don't do something soon, they will start to go bad. Before that point you need to think seriously about preserving them, either by canning or freezing.
The main products I make my tomatoes into are Salsa, Diced tomatoes, and Tomato sauce. I like to target 16 pint jars of each.
For each of the recipes, follow Steps One through Three listed below.
Tomato Sauce
Step one is sourcing your jars and lids. The empty jars that you used last year are out in the garage on the shelf, gathering dust and cobwebs, so I bring them all in and run them through the dishwasher. Lids and rings have been very hard to come by, recently, so I make sure to order them at whatever price the goblins require.
Step Two. As the tomatoes come in from the garden, particularly the cherry tomatoes and Romas, we're going to process them into freezer bags. Simply cut the cherry tomatoes in half and cut both ends off the cylindrical romas. Then pack them into a zipper freezer bag, suck out all the air with a straw and lay them flat in the freezer. Leave them in the freezer for at least 48 hours.
Step Three. When the tomatoes come out of the freezer and are completely thawed, you will notice two things. First, the skins will begin to peel easily away from the tomatoes. Second, there will be a good amount of tomato juice gathered in the bottom of the bags. Peel the tomatoes and save the tomato juice in quart jars. Chop the romas in half. (The cherry tomatoes are already chopped.)
Step Four. We are using the Kitchen Aid vegetable strainer attachment to the power hub of the mixer. Whether the tomatoes are frozen and thawed or fresh and trimmed, we continue along the same path. Fresh vegetables should be chopped so that they can fit into the feed tube of the grinder.
Set Up: The recipe calls for 15 lbs of tomatoes as well as several 15 oz cans of tomato paste, so have those ready. Run your intended tomato sauce jars through the dishwasher while you are working on the tomatoes. Make sure you have new lids and clean rings for the number of jars you intend to fill. Fifteen pounds of tomatoes produces four to six 25-oz jars of tomato sauce.
On the stove, you should have three stock pots. One is for tomato juice, the other is for tomato sauce, and the third will be for tomato pulp. At the juicing station, you need a tall container for the seeds and pulp, and a wider container for the sauce. On top of the sauce container place a fine mesh strainer, to separate the sauce from the juice.
Feed the chopped tomatoes through the hopper and it will produce the pulp and sauce. Work in batches, and when a container is full, transfer the contents to the relevant pot on the stove. They should be heating on medium or lower to maintain a low simmer.
When you've juiced all 15 lbs of tomatoes, see how much they produced on the stove. The three pots should be simmered for at least 1 hour, while you continue to work.
Process the Pulp. Start with the pulp and roughly measure how much skins, seeds and pulp your batch produced. Add roughly 1/3 of that amount in water to the pulp pot and bring to a boil. (For example, if your 15 lbs of tomatoes produced 6 cups of pulp, add 2 cups of water to the pulp pot.) Bring the pulp to a boil, stirring well, and let it gently boil for 45 minutes. Stir occasionally. After simmering, remove from heat and allow the pulp to cool for 15 minutes. Then run the pulp back through the vegetable strainer. Again, it will produce more pulp, juice, and sauce. Discard this remaining pulp, and add the sauce and juice to their respective pots.
Process the Sauce. The finished sauce is ready to can at this point. Depending on how thick the sauce is, you may want to continue simmering for an additional hour, or you can consider adding tomato paste to thicken it to your desired consistency. Adding some amount of paste helps keep the sauce from separating in the jar during storage.
Prepare the pressure canner and add the jars to the vented canner to start heating them.
Mix up the Italian seasoning blend. This should make 6 Tbsp.
- 2 Tbsp Oregano
- 2 Tbsp Basil
- 1 Tbsp Garlic powder
- 2 tsp dried thyme
- 1 tsp crushed red pepper
Add 1 Tbsp salt, 1 Tbsp Sugar, and 1-1/2 tsp Citric Acid (or 1/3 cup lemon juice).
You should also have a can of commercial tomato sauce on hand, if you need to top off one of the jars to the proper 1/2" headspace.
With the hot tomato sauce, fill the heated jars, and pressure can at 10 lbs for 15 minutes. Be sure to pre-vent, and natural release the pressure.
Process the Juice. At this point, the tomato juice will be very thin, but it will be full of flavor. You have a few options at this point.
- If you haven't canned diced tomatoes, you can use this tomato juice in place of the boiling water to cover the tomatoes. Save the juice in quart jars and store it in the refrigerator until you need it.
- Pressure can this juice in pint jars to use during the winter as vegetable stock.
- You could also fortify this juice with commercial tomato paste to make tomato sauce. Add 2 cups tomato juice for every 1 cup of tomato paste. Heat and stir until smooth. Note this is much different than simply diluting tomato paste with water. The tomato juice is already much thicker and more flavorful, with all kinds of aromatics. This fortified tomato sauce is best used for making seasoned pasta sauce, combining with roasted onions and garlic.
For Fortified Pasta sauce:
Mince 1 cup onion (1 med onion) and 6 cloves garlic. Spread them on a baking sheet and roast them in the oven for 20 minutes. Mix the tomato juice with tomato paste at a 2:1 ratio. Add the Italian seasoning blend listed above to the sauce with 1 Tbsp Sugar. To each 24 oz jar, add 1 tsp salt, 1.5 Tbsp lemon juice. Fill to 1/2" headspace and pressure can using the instructions listed above.
Step Four and a half (if you don't have a kitchen aid vegetable strainer. Gather all your diced tomatoes in a slow cooker, set on high. Let them cook 8-10 hours or overnight and the tomatoes will continue to release juice. Ladle this juice into the quart jars you started before. At the end of this process, you may end up with equal parts tomato meat and tomato juice. Run your diced tomatoes through the blender. At this point, consider the thickness of your sauce. You may want to return the sauce to the slow cooker or a stock pot for an additional 2 hours to achieve a thicker sauce.
Complete this process until you have 16 pint jars of sauce.
Annie's Salsa
Next, assemble the vegetables necessary to make a batch of Annie's salsa. This requires 8 cups of diced tomatoes along with onions, green pepper and the rest. As before, follow Steps One, Two, and Three listed above before proceeding. You want to use diced tomatoes that have been previously frozen, then thawed, peeled, and had some of the tomato water naturally separated. You won't cook this in a slow cooker as you did before, but it will benefit from having some of the water separated. Save this juice in your quart jars.
Chop the vegetables and combine in a stock pot following the recipe. Can and process as usual, resulting in 16 pint jars of salsa.
Diced Tomatoes
The next step is to make diced tomatoes. For this process, begin as usual, with steps one, two, and three. This time, instead of slow cooking them, add the diced tomatoes directly to the canning jars. When you get to step five, prepare your jars, add 1 tbsp lemon juice and 1/2 tsp salt. Here, take out the tomato juice you saved in the quart jars and heat it on the stove until it just begins to simmer.
Pack the jars with diced tomatoes. Then, pour the simmering juice over the top until the tomatoes are covered and the juice reaches the bottom ring of the jar. If you don't have enough tomato juice, you can use boiling water instead, but use up the juice first. Then, add rings and lids and process with a water bath.1
This process should give you 16 pints of diced tomatoes.
