A healthy garden produces an abundance of fruit and vegetables, particularly tomatoes. But there's a limit to the number of salads and tomato slices a person can eat during the summer, so any remaining tomatoes must be given away, sold or preserved for future consumption.
Instructions
Can Tomatoes
1. Consider canning most forms of processed tomatoes for sauces, purees, pastes, stews, juices, ketchup and salsa.
2. Pour boiling water over washed and trimmed tomatoes for several minutes. The hot tomatoes peel and core easily. Cut into quarters and then heat them in a large enamel cooking pot.
3. Prepare your stewed tomatoes by adding sufficient acid prior to hot packing. The added acid adjusts the product pH so it is canned safely. This holds true for all canned tomato products.
4. Continue simmering the hot tomatoes if preparing other tomato products. Remove from heat, sieve or pass through a food mill and return to the enamel kettle to cook. Add the proper acid at this point and continue to cook slowly to prevent scorching.
5. Reheat the milled tomatoes to make tomato juice. Boil the sauce for an additional hour to make tomato sauce and another hour longer for tomato paste.
6. Hot pack the cooked tomatoes into clean jars and process in a bath for the specified times, depending on product and container size. Denser tomato paste requires longer processing times than thinner juice.
Freeze Tomatoes
7. Opt to freeze the prepared tomatoes instead of canning for a lot less mess, hot jars or pressure canners.
8. Prepare tomatoes as if for canning and let cool in the enamel pot placed in ice water for around 20 minutes. Scoop the cooled sauce with a clean ladle into pint, quart or gallon freezer bags and leave about 1/2-inch of headroom.
9. Let the bags cool before placing into the freezer. Stack the bags flat in the freezer to conserve freezer space.
Dry Tomatoes
10. Slice clean Roma tomatoes in half lengthwise and remove the stem and heavy ribs. Place the tomatoes in a large bowl, sprinkle with salt and stack the salted tomato halves cut side up in several layers.
11. Place a large plate on top of the stack and let sit for one hour. Drain off any excess liquid in the bottom of the bowl when complete.
12. Blanch the prepared tomato halves in a steamer for four minutes. Carefully move the halves from the steamer to drying trays and sprinkle with Italian seasoning.
13. Cover the trays with screens to protect from flies and dry in an open-air, direct sunlight area or in a food dehydrator according to instructions. Dry the tomatoes until all visible liquid is gone and the tomatoes are soft and pliable.
14. Store dried tomatoes in airtight containers in the refrigerator or in a jar under a layer of olive oil.
Tags: boiling water, , sprinkle with, tomato halves, tomato paste