'Maters

Beautiful orange and red bulbs on shriveled brown naked stalks.   That is essentially the state of my tomato beds.  And the state of my living room is something like this: beautiful tomatoes of all different stages of development sitting upon crisp white window panes in order to bask in the ripening sun.

(This is what happens when one sends young children out to harvest RIPE tomatoes.)

Upon the advice of several friends and the ease with which the task is accomplished, I've decided to can more whole tomatoes in jars this year and see how I like it.  Previously, I would make a few batches of salsa and sauce the rest of the tomato harvest.  Canning whole tomatoes is much easier than either of those and really just consists of washing the fruit, cutting off the bad spots/stem, shoving them in jars and giving them a nice hot bath.

Spaghetti sauce is a bit more time consuming...there is cutting the tomatoes into smallish chunks, putting them through the food strainer, preparing seasonings/onions/peppers, boiling it all down for hours, adding store-bought tomato paste to thicken and then water-bathing the jars.

Canning whole tomatoes is much easier and faster in the short run.  But will it be as easy and fast when dinner is fast approaching and I have 20 minutes to get a pizza in the oven or spaghetti on the table?  

That has yet to be determined.

Home canned spaghetti sauce has always been one of those homemade 'convenience foods' and I certainly don't want to lose that!

One thing I know for sure- canning whole tomatoes requires MANY more canning jars and much more space for storage.  I have completely filled my whole canning cupboard at this point.  The bottom shelf in my kitchen is also full.  The top shelf can't be used for full jars because it becomes too heavy and begins to distort.  So I have reached the point that always comes around this time where I must be creative with storage.

Bookcases?  On the stairs?  Under beds?  On our nightstands?  

One never knows what may happen when one gets desperate.

Thursday Doings~

• made breakfast (cinnamon and brown sugar oatmeal with raisins)
• defrosted frozen tomatoes
• chores
• made a new batch of tea (raspberry mint because I didn't have enough teabags for my usual plain mint) 
• took burnables out to the barn
• began tomatoes (the big item for the day).  Washing.  Cutting.  Squishing.  Pouring. Washing.  Cutting.  Squishing.  Pouring.  Washing.  Cutting.  Squishing....you get the idea. For about four hours.
• While I did tomato-ey things, I listened to a lecture on Winston Churchill.  I think, if the Lord ever gives me another baby and if that baby happens to be a boy, I may be very tempted to name him, at least in part, Churchill.  Strange, but true. 
• talked with a neighbor who stopped by.  Very superly, amazingly, wonderfully excited about what they had to say.  It involves a miniature horse.  (shhhhhhhhh-don't tell!)
• talked with my mother-in-law who stopped by
• fixed lunches for children (pb&j sandwiches-elegant!)
• ate lunch.  Barely convinced myself to get back up out of my chair.
• But I did.  I used rest time to go across the street to the Granary and organize/sort   (An impossible job with an awake Judahbear.)  Did this for about two hours.
• After rest time was over, headed back to house and started the last of the tomatoes and then, the tomato clean-up.  This took about another hour.
• Made supper.  (Chicken quesadillas topped with sour cream and fresh salsa and wheat berry salad.)
• played hangman with childer and husband
• Did supper dishes.
• Wiped down dining table, counters, etc.
• Prepared cherry and pear tomatoes for making into sun-dried tomatoes (via deyhdrator)

Tomorrow I will be canning the sauce I made today, among other things.

See you on the flipside!

 

Tomatoes in real time and My Summer Kitchen

I had several epiphanies this year in regards to tomato sauce making and just canning in general.   The biggest one was the day I decided to do the canning work in a makeshift "summer kitchen".  Yeah-so what if it was just two sawhorses and some boards.

I have a lovely large, centralized space to work, instead of utilizing small bits of every counter around the kitchen (and then walking back and forth from one to another a million times.)

I can enjoy the beautiful sunshine and last warm days instead of being cooped up in a kitchen, pining for them.

I can keep a better eye on my twenty-mile-an-hour children when I am outside with them.

AND

All the seeds, juice and mess that inevitably splash all over the kitchen happily splashes in the grass-where I do NOT have to mop.

It has worked splendidly well for every every canning occasion thus far.  I can't believe it has taken me this long to figure it out.



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You know what braids and bandana days mean...

Me without makeup.  Brave girl.

 I noticed earlier this month that my tomato plants got late blight and began rotting.  I gathered up as many tomatoes as I could and set them to ripen away from the garden. This photo was from a week ago or so~ most of them were ready for saucing today PLUS, I was able to get a whole other batch (several large bowls) of tomatoes from the garden one last time.  Busy, busy.

I had help, you see.   Made things so much more pleasant.  Even if he made me wet.

 

Chickens love canning days.

The two other things I figured out this year were:
1)  If you freeze your tomatoes first, they go through the strainer so much more easily!  Also- you can choose when to can without fearing them going bad--meaning, you can wait for a cooler day when you want to warm up the house.  The other benefit, of course, is that if you have smaller batches, you can continue freezing until you have enough for a LARGE batch.  I would rather get everything out for a large batch then to get everything out several times for smaller ones.  Finally, the water in the tomatoes separates so you can strain the pulp without nearly as much water, leaving a lot less water to boil down!

and

2) My green peppers always fizzle out before my tomatoes are ready so I would always buy green peppers to put in my salsas and spaghetti sauces.  THIS year, however, I dehydrated my peppers!  Then, when it was time to make sauce, I threw a bunch in and by the time my sauce was thickened, the peppers were rehydrated and lovely.  And no need for storebought!

I don't know why it has taken me so many years to reach these conclusions.  I am a slow learner, apparently.

This picture right here is of the kind that are nothing special, but you just KNOW are going to melt your heart twenty years from now.  Or even ten.  Awww, little bitty  Judah.   I love you so.

Ahhhh....it felt good to sit down and write this post.  I'll be back later with my to-do list for today.

How is your day going today?  What'cha up to?