Canning with Chef Jo: Tomatoes on a Wood Stove

 It happens every year about this time, we fire up the wood stove at night. The 40 degree temperatures are a bit brisk outside and the inside it's in the low 60s. Of course, Mel has already transitioned to her cold weather wear of flannel pajamas, but she's still "freezing."

Personally, I eagerly await this time of year. For me it's canning season for tomatoes. Yes, you read that right, t-o-m-a-t-o-e-s. They gave been washed, cored, and frozen since they were at their peak of freshness just biding their time in the canner while other high acid fruits and vegetables are already had their turn in the hot tub/water bath canner.

We keep the enamel ware water bath canning pot on the wood stove heater all winter long for adding humidity to the air. So why doesn't it do double duty like everything else on our small homestead, right? The water temperature, if not a rolling boil, reaches above 200 degrees for safe water bath canning. (212 degrees is water's boiling point) Water will come to a rolling boil on the wood stove when only half filled with water alone and the canning time is extended by ten additional minutes when the canner is less than a rolling boil and above 180 degrees.

Now my petite diced tomatoes are no problem, a no-brainer to make and can. Most newbies to canning after they can fruits, jams, and jellies move on to tomatoes next because they are so easy as a next step. But tomato sauce  and be a bit daunting because it takes hours of cooking to prepare. That's usually the case, but what if I taught you how to make it in an hour? Actually it's a three-hour process, but an hour hands on prep work from tomatoes to a thick, rich sauce. It all starts with frozen tomatoes.

**To freeze your harvest of tomatoes, wash, slice the stem end of your paste tomatoes, and place in large freezer bags. I usually use 2-gallon bags. Five or ten gallon bags are available online though. I just forget to order them. I save the few I have and reuse them each year. Two gallon bags are available at Wally World (Walmart). They also can be washed and reused over years. 

The Process

• Thaw the tomatoes in the bags.
• Peel the tomatoes. They will slip their skins easily after the tomatoes are thawed.
• Put the tomatoes in a fine mesh strainer. I do a bushel (50-60 lbs) at a time so I use a clean pillow case and hang it over a large pot to catch the tomato water. Reserve the about half of the tomato water.
• After a couple of hours, press remaining water from the tomatoes.
• Place tomato pulp in a large pot.
• Turn heat to low. You may have to add some of the reserved liquid (about a 1/4 of the liquid at a time) to keep the tomatoes from scorching. It usually takes the full amount of liquid for me.
• Add vinegar. 1/2 cup for every half a bushel
• Bring pulp to a simmer.
• Take your immersion blender and liquefy the pulp.
• Notice how thick the pulp is? You can ladle it into jars at this point or cook it down some more (about an hour of total time). Remember the sauce will cook an additional 40 minutes in the canner and will continue to thicken.

How long you strain the tomatoes depends on how much liquid is in them. I've found an hour to be sufficient with Roma tomatoes and up to two hours with other paste tomatoes. For other types of tomatoes this time may be longer. When complete, they are moist to the touch. I do not count the thawing and straining time in the prep time because you aren't physically doing anything to them except pulling the bags from the freezer or emptying the bags into the strainer which takes about 5 minutes tops.

Now, I'll repeat these steps for all six bushels I have designated for sauce. You end up with five pints of sauce for every ten pounds of tomatoes. And yes, we use that much sauce in a year.  From these I'll make my knock off Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce, ketchup, pasta sauce, sloppy Jo's sauce, 1000 island dressing, cocktail sauce etc throughout the year. But they all start with tomato sauce.

Y'all have a blessed day!

Chef Jo