Putting food by

When I first heard that there were unlimited tomatoes in the farm share, I instantly thought this would be the perfect excuse to learn how to can my own tomatoes for future use.  Canned whole tomatoes are a staple in my pantry for soups and sauces, so if I could save money on the store-bought version by investing a little time, why not?  Unfortunately, I missed the unlimited-tomato offer, which is not that big of a problem since I really wanted plum tomatoes.  So I kept an eye out for a good deal, and one day I stopped at a farm stand close to home that had a large basket of plum tomatoes for just $16.  The box I left with had around 30 lbs. of tomatoes...more than I knew what to do with.  Almost.

In preparation for my canning adventure, I consulted with my sister, and bought a couple books (I've used more recipes from this one, but love flipping through this one).  I bought a few cases of jars: quart, pint and some adorable half-pint jars.  And I found a partner in crime to help process all the tomatoes & be my cheerleader in dealing with hot jars and boiling water.  My sister has promised me a pair of jar lifters, so the only other tool I needed was a pair of tongs, reinforced with rubber bands to help grip the jars.

Tomatoes, pickles & jams are high-acid foods, which means that they can be canned in just boiling water.  Other foods that have a lower acidity need to be canned in a pressure cooker to ensure a high enough temperature to kill any unwanted organisms.  The empty jars for the boiling-water method get heated up in a large pot, and then you pull them out and empty the jars when you're ready to pack them.  The flat lids (not the screw bands) also need to get heated up.  I put them in a small glass bowl and pour boiling water over them.

To can the tomatoes, they needed to be peeled, and then cooked.  Peeling tomatoes is really simple: you score the skin with a sharp knife (making an X on the bottom of the fruit), and then place in just-boiled water for about 5 minutes, or until the skin starts to peel away.  The peel will come off very easily, especially if the tomato is really ripe.  Next, we cored the tomatoes, and then boiled them in water for five minutes.  To ensure a uniform acidity, each hot jar gets a bit of lemon juice or citric acid.  Then the jars get packed with as many tomatoes as will fit, and then topped off with the hot water used to boil them.  After removing air bubbles with a chopstick, topping off a bit more with water, and wiping down the lip of each jar, they get sealed as tight as you can with just your hands, and put back into the pot.  There needs to be at least a couple inches of water above the lids of the jars.  Each recipe specifies how long to boil the jars.  After removed, they have to sit for 24 hours undisturbed, but you can check to see if a seal was made after an hour or so.

After filling up around 10 jars of tomatoes, I decided to try something different.  One recipe that caught my eye in my books was one for salsa.  This called for a few more ingredients: jalapenos, onion, garlic, bell pepper & cilantro.  I normally don't follow recipes very closely, but when there's the potential for botulism involved, I feel compelled to observe the amounts carefully.  Even after all the canned whole tomatoes, there were enough left to make a double-recipe of salsa (or 10 pints!).  Bring on the tortilla chips.

Canned pickles & tomatoes

The following weekend, I felt ready to try something a little more challenging: pickling.  In Russia this summer, I tasted some amazing "fresh" pickles, which are essentially whole cucumbers preserved in salt water for a few days.  I couldn't find anything quite like that, nor did I have time during the week to get the pickling process going.  So I picked up a large quantity of pickling cucumbers (Kirby cucumbers, not the large/long slicing "field" variety. Unfortunately, the farm also did not have these in the weekly share, but I got them from another local farm -- 10 lbs. for $14!).  My canning partner came back over, and we started scrubbing and slicing cucumbers into spears.  The first step in the recipe I followed involved salting the cukes, covering them in water, and letting them sit for two hours.  Only later do you make a brine with vinegar (for pickles that ferment for days, vinegar isn't necessary), and season it with dill seeds & mustard seeds.  The cucumbers get cooked in this brine for just a minute or two, and then get packed into hot jars.  The other components of flavoring come from a jalapeno-pepper-garlic mixture that goes into the jar with the pickles.  The brine fills up the jars, and the rest of the process is the same.  I couldn't wait the full 24 hours, though, and took a still-warm jar to a barbecue later that night.  While they were much sweeter than I normally like, these pickles were AMAZING.  I can't wait to try my hand again with a recipe that has less sugar.

I've also already gotten into the tomatoes.  A few peeled tomatoes didn't quite fit into jars, and one jar didn't seal properly, so I had to use these up quickly.  I made a sauce, adding onion, garlic and some peppers from the farm.  I added browned ground beef to make it more substantial, and seasoned it with fresh oregano and thyme from Griggstown as well.  The aroma was to die for, and the taste was even better.  If you've only used dried oregano, you really have no idea what you're missing by not using fresh.