Using Gadgets to Can Tomatoes

I did something different this year when canning tomato sauce. I used my steam juicer and food strainer. Let me tell ya, it was so much easier.

My family uses tomatoes mostly in the form of sauce, specifically pasta sauce. So, I decided to can my tomatoes in sauce form this year. I was able to eliminate the need for a blanching bath for the tomatoes because I used my steam juicer.

Below you'll see the 4 out of 5 baskets of tomatoes I canned this year. Each basket has approx. 30 lbs of tomatoes in it. So, in all I canned 150 lbs of those little red jewels of love. :)

I want to introduce you to two new pieces of equipment that I used this year. Below is a picture of my steam juicer all set up to receive my bounty. I highly recommend owning one of these juicers and buy one that is stainless steel. They're a little more expensive, but well worth it in the long run.

Mine is a Mehu-Liisa steam juicer. It's about the most expensive one out there and the only reason I bought it is because it's made in Finland and I served a mission for my church in Finland. So, I chose to support their economy. Mehu Liisa means "more juice" in Finnish.

I just bought a juicer for my mom from Amazon for $120.xx which included shipping. I'm sure you could find it cheaper. I just chose not to search high and low for one.

So the concept of the steam juicer is that it is in three pieces. The bottom piece is filled with water and put on the heat source. As the water heats up it turns to steam which streams up through the middle piece and hits the tomatoes (or other fruit/veggies even chicken) sitting in the strainer basket. As the steam hits the produce, it naturally cooks the produce and draws out the juices which fall into the middle piece. The middle piece has a hole which tubing is hooked to for the juices to drain out. The cooked produce is in the strainer basket and the juices are collected outside of the steam juicer to be used or thrown away.
Below is the bottom piece and has water in it. I have let mine go dry a few too many times, thus the brown spots on it. Gotta stay on top of the water supply.
Here is the middle piece. Notice the hole in the middle where the steam is allowed to stream up to hit the strainer basket. The middle piece also catches the juices that fall from the cooked produce.
The top piece is the strainer basket. You'd be surprised how much produce can be put into this part. Plus as it cooks down, you can add more.
Here's a picture of Lucy washing a basket of tomatoes. My sink is large enough to actually fit an entire basket of them.
She washed them and I cut them into quarters and put them in the strainer basket.
Here you can see the tomato juice pouring out of the juicer into a pot. It's hot stuff.
Here are the tomatoes on their way to being cooked down.
I tried something else that worked really well too. I filled my huge roaster pan up with quartered tomatoes, onions and about 6 cloves of garlic and a hefty sprinkle of Italian seasoning. I put the whole thing in the oven at 400 degrees and roasted them. I went in and stirred them around a few times. It took a good 3-4 hours to cook them down but boy they sure did smell good.
Below is a picture of the roasted tomatoes, onions and garlic cooked down and ready for the food mill.
This is the food mill. You can do a google search for a Victorio strainer to see all the pieces and parts. Basically you have the hopper on top which feeds the produce into the strainer part. As you turn the handle it moves the produce straining out the peeling and seeds creating a perfectly pure sauce.
It's a bit of a mess but you can see the process. The sauce comes out the side and the peelings and seeds go out the back. I saved the peels and put them in the dehydrator. After they were dried, I put them in the food processor and turned them into a tomato powder. Now I can use them to make a paste or flavor a stew...etc.
Once the sauce is done, I fill add 2 tbl lemon juice to quarts, fill the jars with sauce, wipe rims, put on lids and rings and process them in a water bath canner. 40 min for quarts, 35 min for pints. (1 tbl of lemon juice for pints)

You can refer to my blog post for step by step instructions on how to can tomatoes using a blanching bath. storageskills.blogspot.com/2009/08/preparing-tomatoes-for-canning.html

I ended up with 30 quarts of sauce, 23 quarts of tomato juice and the dehydrated peels. What a blessing to have such a wonderful bounty.

Preparing Tomatoes for Canning

I just got finished processing 13 baskets of tomatoes this last week.  Everyone needs to know how to process tomatoes.  In this blog post, I'll show you how to prep your tomatoes and can them in chunks.  The only different with sauce is that you would blend the softened tomatoes and cook them down more so there is less water in it.

Let's begin:  Bring a pot of water to boil.  This will be used to blanch and peel the tomatoes.  Do this first so that while you're prepping the tomatoes the water can start to heat up.

Aren't these tomatoes beautiful?  Do you know that I will NOT eat a fresh tomato?  I can't stand the taste of them.  But, I'll eat anything made from a tomato.  I'm a little strange.  I do try a tomato once or twice a year to see if anything has changed. :)

Get all of your tomatoes washed off.  I got these straight from my garden.  I pick my tomatoes and put them in a colander that I bring to the garden with me.  Makes it much easier to rinse and start eating.  I do this with all my veggies from the garden.

This is just a picture of my pretty tomatoes.  I grew all heirlooms this year.  This are a paste tomato except for the big fat one, that's a Campbell's brand heirloom that I picked up at a plant sale this spring.  I'm learning how to harvest seeds this year.

Once your tomatoes are washed, go ahead and with a knife, cut an X in the bottoms of the tomatoes.  This will help you peel them easier once they've been blanched.

Fill up a big bowl or a sink with cold water and add some ice to it.  You're going to want the water as cold as possible when you put the hot tomatoes in it.  That will stop the cooking process and make the tomatoes easier to handle.  It's hard to see the ice in this picture but there is some in there.

Once the water in the pot is boiling, put about 10-15 tomatoes in and let them boil for about 1-2 minutes.  Depending on how ripe your tomatoes are--leave them in longer or shorter.  You'll see the skins begin to crack and split or you'll see the X start to curl.  Pull the tomatoes out and put them in your ice water.

Ahhhhh......Those maters feel so much better now that they're in the ice water.  You can see how the skins are just falling off the tomatoes.  Sometimes that will happen.  Other times, if the tomato isn't quite ripe, you'll have to hand peel it.

In this picture, you can see how easy it is to peel.  Grab the tomato so the X is facing up, and just pull down the skin with your fingers.  Easy peesy!

I like to get the seeds, core and some of the liquid out of the tomato before I put them in jars.  Here you'll see one half that I've seeded and cored and the other half before working my magic.

Now, just give it/them a rough chop.
Put the chopped tomatoes in a pot and bring them to a simmer.  You're reducing the liquid a little more and softening the tomatoes.  I've found in all my years doing this that cooking them down a bit makes for a prettier jar of tomatoes and you can get more in the jar.  It's one more step than canning the tomatoes raw, you can do that too if you'd like.  I've done it many times.

You will need to add some lemon juice to your tomatoes before you process them in a boiling water bath.  Nowadays the tomatoes aren't as acidic as in the past and little beasties are developing to withstand regular tomato acidic.  By increasing the acid with lemon juice, you're making sure the little beasties (very academic) can't grow in your stored jars.

1 Tbl in a pint 

2 Tbls in a quart

I usually put the lemon juice in first so I can see that I did it.  I just go around with my bottle of lemon juice and a tablespoon and fill up all my prepared jars.

Ladle in your tomatoes, wipe the rims and put on your warm lids and rings.

Process quarts 40 minutes in boiling water bath. Pints 35 mins.

Let cool on cooling rack over night.  Remove rings and wipe around threads near the rim.  Label with type and date and put them in your storage.

Coupon Basics

I taught a VERY basic coupon class on Saturday and thought I'd share the powerpoint presentation here. I'm in NJ so there will be differences with store policies about coupons in different places of the country.

I welcome any other suggestions. This was very basic and I filled in with a lot of stories from my experiences of couponing over the last 10 years.

I welcome any suggestions to add to the ppt. I'll be teaching a similar class to an organization within Catholic Charities next month. So, I'm all for tweaking it.

Thank you.

Couponing 101

Flu Preps

I've been meaning to write a little about prepping for a potential pandemic flu. Now, with the current state of affairs it's not too difficult to realize that this can actually happen.

I want to encourage everyone to gather a three month's supply of the food that you eat on a regular basis. Figure out about 5 meals that are common in your home. Take of example: spaghetti. In our family we have 6 children and 2 adults. We have to have 3 pounds of pasta for just one meal. If we eat spaghetti once a week, I'll need to store at least 36 boxes of pasta for a three month's supply. The same type of calculations are done for the ingredients for the sauce. If you buy canned sauce, then calculate how many you will need.

Continue doing this for all of the meals you've chosen. Remember to think of meals for breakfast as well. Also include fun foods that you're going to want to eat. Cookies, cake and brownie mixes, jello, instant pudding...etc.

Along with food, you're going to want to have N95 masks and surgical type gloves in storage. This is to prevent spreading or inhaling anything from the flu "of the day" to MRSA a nasty staph infection.

Learn how and teach your loved ones how to wash their hands correctly. When washing hands, lather the hands up generously and continue to scrub hands for the the amount of time it takes to sing "Happy Birthday". Then rinse hands in warm water. You'll need to wash hands after using alcohol-based hand sanitizer five times. The hand sanitizer just doesn't get into all the crevices of the hands and fingers.

BUT, please do include hand sanitizer in your storage. Get hold of small bottles of sanitizer so that EVERY member of the family carries it with them. Teach them how to use it and make it a normal part of their day.

Washing hands will be the greatest source of protection we have to fight against any funky things coming down the pike.

Bleach is also necessary to clean the surfaces of your home and other areas. Mix 1 tsp of bleach to one gallon of water. This mixture will only have potency for ONE day. You'll have to mix this up every day. My husband will be taking this in a spray bottle to the gym every day to spray down the equipment before he works out.

Keep your "outside of the house" footprint small. Combine all of your errands so you only have to be outside for a minimal amount of time. This is where the three month's supply comes in handy.

Add over the counter drugs and vitamins to your storage. Things like children's Tylenol and cough medicine may help with symptoms from the flu. The healthier you can make your body the better chance you will have of getting through this will as little stress as possible.

If you have more questions, please ask.

Container Gardening Class

Last week I had the opportunity to teach a container gardening class to my stake.  I was pleasantly surprised to see that over 50 people attended the class.  I created a power point presentation vs. giving out a ton of handouts.  I thought I'd post the link to my power point presentation that has been converted to a .pdf file.

Container Gardening Presentation

Thank you

I'm still a little inept at figuring out the blog stuff. I just wanted to say THANK YOU to so many of you who have sent me your success stories about your own home storage efforts. I'm so proud of you. I don't know you but I'm thankful to you for all of your preparations. It makes me more determined to do more.

Keep up the good work. Please continue to write and tell me all the fun stuff you and your friends are doing. YAY FOR YOU!!!

Wendi in NJ

Online Canning Class

I just took an online self-study course on Home Canning and Preservation offered by the the National Center for Home Food Preservation through the University of Georgia.

I have to say that I knew a lot but learned quite a bit as well. It also helped to solidify some things I was a bit shaky on. They have you take a pre-quiz before each section. I didn't pass the pre-quizzes but scored between 70-90%. After the section, you'll have the opportunity to take the same quiz up to two more times. If you pass the course with greater than 70%, you will be sent a certificate saying that you completed the course.

The course is free of charge. Click on this link http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/index.html and scroll to the bottom. You'll see a little sign that says "Preserving Food at Home--Self Study". Under that banner there will be a teeny tiny link to sign up for the course. It took about a week before I was sent the link and password for the actual course.

You have up to 6 months to complete it. Having done a bunch of canning, I didn't feel it necessary to actually go through the exercises they give you. They teach you to can apples, tomatoes and something else that slips my mind. If you mess up, they give you reasons for the problems. I did find it to be very helpful.

I completed the course in one day. If you're familiar with canning, it takes about 2 hours or so. I was also doing laundry, homeschooling and general mom stuff.

Let me know if you take the course and what you think.