Sunday, September 6, 2009

Tomatoes

On the way home from Cherry Crest Adventure Farm, we stopped by an Amish farm stand that advertised 25 cent/lb canning tomatoes. We got two large bags
for $12. After dinner, while I got started blanching the tomatoes and boiling the jars, Abram and Owen went to pick up some canning lids for $1.34/dozen. We already had a collection of canning jars and plenty of rings as well as salt.

After I washed the tomatoes, I blanched them in boiling water until the skins popped to make them easy to peel and cooled them in cold water. Then I pulled the peels off (and saved the scraps for the farmers at the market) and roughly chopped the tomatoes into a large pot. I boild these about 15 minutes.
I also boiled all the jars I needed and the lids and rings for 10 minutes to sterilize them.
I jarred up the hot stewed tomatoes into jars, wiped the lids, closed them with a lid and a ring and processed them for 45 minutes in a boiling water bath. Abram took over the last part of the water bathing as I nursed Owen to sleep rather late around 10 o'clock. He also sliced up a dehydrator full of tomatoes to have some dried ones.
We spend about $15 on supplies yesterday and about 3 hours of our time to get 13 quarts plus 2, 3-cup jars and a pint of tomatoes. Considering that we had extra lids left over, we spent about $1/quart for additive-free crushed tomatoes. Compare this to about $3.50/quart from the store, and I think we did quite well.
This renews my appreciation for the wonderful tomatoes that Ma canned for us last summer. She used tomatoes from our garden and gave them to us when we were down visiting. She didn't have enough tomatoes to fill up all our jars, so she also gave us pears too. Yum! I still need to write a proper thank you to her. What an amazing and wonderful lady she is!

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