The tomato plants from our garden are on fire at the moment. Every other day, Brian and Brendan come in from the garden in the evening with at least 3 mixing bowls full of Roma tomatoes. This is only a small example.
Here they are blanched, which is a process of simply dropping them in boiling water for about 2 minutes to loosen the skins so the skins can be easily removed.
I’ve already canned 6 quart-sized jars (32 oz.) and 4 pint-sized (16 oz.) of whole peeled tomatoes. About 14 tomatoes fit in one quart-sized jar. That’s a lot of tomatoes I’ll have ready for chili or sauce or whatever I need this fall and winter.
My latest canning experiment was making homemade salsa. I’ve been reading recipes around the web for canning salsa and my cousin sent me a recipe last summer so I kind of knew what to do. This recipe has clear steps and procedures. I pretty much followed it completely, except I changed the amount and types of peppers I used.
Saturday, I started preparing the tomatoes for salsa making. Instead of blanching them, I broiled them to remove the skins. I halved and cored them, and took out the seeds. Then I spread them face down out on a baking sheet lined with aluminum foil and broiled them until the skins were blackened to make removing the skins easy. After the skins were removed and the tomatoes cooled, I chopped them and added them to the stock pot. I repeated this broiling procedure with the poblanos, jalepeños, garlic and onions. Everything was chopped once cooled and added to the stockpot.
Waterbath canning itself takes about 45 minutes so I waited until the next day to finish. The liquid ingredients were added and then everything was brought to a gentle boil for 10-15 minutes. I filled the jars and prepared them for canning. Seven pint-sized jars and 4 half-pint jars… Do you think we have enough salsa? Anyone want any?
The entire time, Brian is saying, “are you taking pictures for your blog post?” I will definitely take more pictures of each step next time. There are already bowls of tomatoes waiting to be picked in our garden. Oh my… Any requests for anything, friends?
