What have you canned or preserved today?

[Ridgerunner]

Some people just pop whole tomatoes in the freezer. I don't. I grow a lot of the big beefsteak so they are not perfect. They always have some bad spots that need to be cut out and I can't do that when I thaw them. They are too mushy to core and trim efficiently for me, though some people on here have posted they can do it if they get them before they fully thaw. That's too complicated for me.

I core and trim the tomatoes and freeze them in gallion sized zip-lock type bags. When I take them out, I just put them in a big sauce pot and thaw them, slowly at first but hotter after you get some juices. I stir constantly. Use a long metal spoon to stir. The wooden ones will break when you are first getting started stirring. I pick out a lot of the skin when they are thawing. It comes loose and sort of curls up but you can burn your fingertips learning a technique to pick that skin out.

I always either go through a food mill or Squeezo strainer. I have to to get the seeds out or my wife can't eat it. That gets the skins I miss too.

Editted to add: You'll find we all do these things differently. It's not that one is right and the others are wrong. We just do things differently.

 

[ninnymary]

RidgeRunner, I like the idea of coring first. What is a squeezo strainer? Is it cheaper than a food mill?

Mary

 

[so lucky]

That's pretty much the way I freeze mine, too. Wash, core, quarter if they are very big, cut out the bruised spots. The only thing about using the food mill is, if you are making salsa, you will want your tomatoes just diced. Don't they leave the seeds in salsa? If so, you would only have to skin them, chop up and heat.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Mary, you can do a Google search on Squeezo strainer, but they are something that you feed the tomatoes, berries, or whatever in the top, crank a handle, and the juice and most of the pulp comes out one place and the seeds and skin comes out another. They are not inexpensive, probably around $175. It kinda depends on which screens you get with it but they cost a lot more than a food mill. You can get less expensive food strainers. Victorio makes a pretty popular model. I got the Squeezo because it is all metal where the Victorio has some plastic parts. I don't know if it was worth the extra money or not.

You don't have to cook the frozen tomatoes to thaw them. If you just let them thaw, the skin peels off very easily. This works great on those perfect tomatoes that don't have the bad spots that need to be trimmed out. Different methods for different folks.

So Lucky, some tomato products have the seeds still in. I can't do that because my wife has real medical problems with the seeds. I have to get them out.

 

[ninnymary]

so lucky, freezing the tomatoes for salsa would not work for me. For my salsa, I roast my tomatoes. I suppose I could use the frozen ones for making spaghetti sauce to can.

Mary

 

[vfem]

Oooh... Mary! I want to roast my tomatoes and try that with my next batch of salsa, that sounds amazing!

 

[vfem]

I finished 28 jars of fig jam, 6 pints of tomato sauce and 5 pints of salsa. It was a busy day!

(I also started several quarts of my fruit liquors I give for christmas... peach & lemon)

 

[cityfarmer]

5 quarts of CO peaches canned and 5 pints of CO peach pie filling frozen. I bought all the peaches at the store.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Four half-pints of Plum Chutney and 5 half-pints of Peach & Plum Chutney. I had one of each that was not quite full. The reason the Peach & Plum is so much darker is that it had ground cloves in it.

You're asking what the heck is this? Why is this here? It's my compost pile. I bagged about 160 pounds of compost, made mainly from stuff from the garden, the chickens, and the kitchen. Time to start the next batch.

 

[lesa]

Drying my first batch of basil- the house smells like heaven!