I've been throwing tomatoes in the freezer for about a month now waiting for a good load of them so I could can a lot of them at once. I decided that today was the day and pulled out all my bags of tomatoes a few days ago so they could start to thaw. I tested this recipe last week so I decided that we would use it again.
I decided to try what my neighbor does and steam juice the tomatoes first to reduce the cooking time. It does seem to reduce the cooking time on the back end, but adds it to the front end instead. The only other advantage is that by steam juicing them, any frozen tomatoes would thaw before they hit my food mill.
Now my cute helpers and I are ready to get to work. We planted Lemon boys this year and San Marzanos. I really liked both the tomato varieties. Racer would have gotten in on the action too but he and DH were at a Scout Jamboral and missed all the fun.
Now my cute helpers and I are ready to get to work. We planted Lemon boys this year and San Marzanos. I really liked both the tomato varieties. Racer would have gotten in on the action too but he and DH were at a Scout Jamboral and missed all the fun.
Just seeing Sunshine's face makes me smile.
We ended up with three pots of sauce. As you'll see in my last picture, I should have let the sauce reduce more. However, it's still fine; we'll just reduce it later when we are going to use it.
We ended up with three pots of sauce. As you'll see in my last picture, I should have let the sauce reduce more. However, it's still fine; we'll just reduce it later when we are going to use it.
Oops, didn't take a picture of the last pot of sauce. It was in our electric pressure cooker with the lid off. We dumped in some brown sugar and some balsamic vinegar and let it reduce a little. I thought the texture was okay, but I should have let them go some more. Then we added some basil and oregano. |
The count so far is 13 quarts and one pint of sauce. That front jar is a prime example of a sauce that's a little too watery. We'll shake it up later. I did have one can that didn't seal so we'll try that one out on Monday. I also ended up with tons of tomato juice. DH told me to throw it out, but I just couldn't so it's in the freezer. I'll use it in chilis and as pasta water. I should have gotten a picture of my brother too. He came down to hang out for a little bit and got pressed into service as a jar filler while I was washing up and trying to clean the kitchen. A big shout out and thank you to him.