With nearly 11 pounds of tomatoes harvested earlier in the week (plus another six or so pounds harvested yesterday), it was time to preserve our summer bounty for later use. Ms. K. was kind enough to show me one of her canning books, the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. This was the first time I led a canning project...I hope it turns out successful!
First, we washed the tomatoes, scored, blanched, removed the peels, and quartered. Those steps happened very fast!
We canned last night and again this morning. We used a "raw pack" method last night, where we added the peeled, quartered fruit directly to the jars with citric acid and covered with boiling water. As an experiment, I tried the hot pack method, boiling the tomatoes for 5 minutes before putting in jars.
Getting ready...funnel and jars ready to go, lids warming, and citric acid placed for easy access.
I almost forgot to put the citric acid in, but remembered just before filling with tomatoes! Here are five filled jars, ready to go in the canner. It's amazing how many pounds of tomatoes one needs to generate a large stock of produce. At Fleet Farm, I picked up a flat of quart-sized jars, in anticipation of needing them. Alas, quarts were too big...we would have filled only two from each batch!
Ready for their bath and hot-water extravaganza. 40 minutes of boiling.
I stayed in the kitchen during the preservation. It was very humid and hot, even with the windows open. The air temp was over 90 degrees and the smoke alarm was going off from all the steam and humidity. Lucy was not impressed.
For all this effort (last night and today), we yielded just 10 jars. A good lesson for next year when we pick varieties for planting: if you want to put up tomatoes, make sure you have a lot of them. The Costoluto Genovese ripened very consistently (a plus for home canning). If they keep well and are tasty, more than one plant will be in the beds next year.
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