The Tomatoes are Here – One of My Favourite Weeks of the Year
We`ll be drowning in a sea of red by noon on Sunday. It`s almost a full week away and I can hardly wait – bushels of tomatoes have started to arrive in stores across the city and we`ll be joining my folks in our annual tomato sauce cookout. It`s an exciting time.
The week ahead will include many familiar conversations. We`ll chat about the prices, strategize about how many days early to buy them (a trick learned last year which made a massive difference as we spread out the bushels across the garage floor), what type of tomatoes to use and see how our garlic grew over the winter. It almost feels like playoff time here – it`s a big week of getting excited for a big day (or 2) of work.
There will be the usual debates of how much to do, how to do them and the like. Sometimes we take on a side project (last year was tomato juice and I`d love to do more stewed tomatoes) but those can present their challenges as well.
We`ve got our system down pretty good and the four of us can run through 6-8 bushels with a solid day of work. Even after 5+ years of doing this as a team we find there`s a few kinks that we can work out (last year we had 200 liters of sauce but no large pots left for the hot water bath) and will continue to learn from the process. One of the great joys has been learning to work as a team and having fun together with it. We now complete the entire task in less than half the time than what we took 5 years ago (with most of the same equipment).
One of my favourite things about jarring tomatoes (other than family) is that we do the entire process outside. My Parents have a covered porch that protects us from the hot sun or cold rain and we are able to alternate pots between the front porch and back yard to get things done as needed. I can`t imagine doing this quantity inside – the heat and the mess would both be a nightmare.
It`s also the beginning of culinary fall – one of my favourite seasons of the year.
Tomatoes are a lot of work and there`s a lot of satisfaction with jarring sauce. If you haven`t done it before, grab some people you love and jump in and perhaps you`ll find yourself with a new family tradition or rite of passage into the fall.
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We are in the middle of our second canning season, which is going more smoothly than the first efforts due to the important hands-on experience we gained last year – and the detailed notes I wrote about exactly how many kilos and litres of peaches and tomatoes we used, what we did, what went wrong, and what worked. Your advice and instructions got us started – thanks very much!
We learned that our peaches floated in their jars last year no matter what we did, but we discovered in the winter that it didn’t matter at all because the fruit was just fine and tasted wonderful – far, far better than the commercially canned product. So this year we doubled the amount. We loved our tomato sauces and puree, too. Now we know how much we go through in a year, so although we didn’t have to buy any commercial tomato products at all since last season, we will double production this year. I have my tomato order in with Ben and this weekend we’ll do the first of our batches. We’ve learned that canning is hot, tiring work that is completely satisfying.
I hope that you enjoy a successful canning session this week!
For Anu M and others who want peaches and pears don’t float…I canned both last year for the first time in about 10 years. So I started by doing an unreasonable amount of research to make sure I didnt’ mess it up. I found an article (don’t ask me where) that stated if you poach your peach and pear halves for a couple of minutes in the syrup you have already heating on the stove, it forces the air from the fruit so it doesn’t float in the jar. Made sense to me. Pack the fruit in jars and pour the syrup over, process as normal. The added advantage is that the fruit shrinks a little as a result and you can get more in each jar. I did mine in pint jars, and there’s a lot of fruit in each one, and not a floater among them! And the texture is great. I would be careful not to leave the fruit poaching for more than a minute or two (just enough to heat through) or I’d imagine it would be overcooked by the time it comes from the water bath. I assume one could adjust this techinque so it works for most fruits & veg that you’re canning.