Cooking with Chef Jo: Canning Tomatoes and Sauce

With the garden providing bupkis this year, the decision was made to buy roma tomatoes from the local produce market. Our local farmer's market didn't have the quantity I needed. Although they are my first choice because they are chemical free. It's not ideal, but I'm down to two jars of salsa and one jar of diced tomatoes. EEK! It was the one vegetable that we went through in a year that I estimated right. WTG! or unfortunate with the garden failure.

I figured two bushels would carry us through until we could harvest next year. One bushel for sauce and diced for the other one. I put both bushels in the freezer after washing them twice, cutting out any bad/unpretty spots, and coring them. They've now been frozen for two weeks and it's time to get busy! I start with the sauce tomatoes. There is a method to my Murphey Madness.

Canning tomato sauce in pint jars...

What you'll need
1 Bushel Roma tomatoes, cored and frozen. A bushel of tomatoes weighs 56 lbs. I'll be making about a year's worth of sauce.
Canning salt, or Sea salt, or Kosher salt*

3 lbs onions, large dice (1" to 2")
1 head of celery, large dice (1" to 2")
1 head of garlic, minced
Italian seasoning*
2 TBS olive oil
1 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar (ACV)*

A stick or immersion blender, or blender
Stock pot(s)
Water bath canner or pressure canner
Jars, lids, and rings
colander
large basin to catch the tomato water
knife

Notes*- I put Italian seasoning into all my tomato sauce recipes no matter what I'm cooking. I also dehydrate my own homegrown herbs and make my own spice blend. So I'm making this an optional addition. For the salt I measure 1/2 tsp per jar for pints 1 tsp qt jars). The apple cider vinegar raises the PH of the sauce so even with low acid herbs, onions, and celery, it can still be water bath canned. Even though the FDA does not recommend it, but I've been doing it for decades.

Putting it together

• Place from cored tomatoes in a colander over a bowl. Allow tomatoes to partially thaw.
• Slice tomatoes into quarters and gently squeeze each quarter to remove the excess water. Save the liquid in the drain bowl from thawing. This will reduce the cooking time.
• Notice I didn't remove the skins nor seeds from the tomatoes. There's a lot of flavor and color in those seeds and skins.
• Place oil in your stock pot. Add onions and celery. If you like bell peppers you can add them too. Cook until tender. Add Italian seasoning, garlic, and ACV to the pot. If you are cooking this in several pots, divide vegetables evenly in each pot.
• Add the quartered tomatoes to the pot. Let simmer for an hour. Stirring occasionally to keep it from burning on the bottom of the pot.
• Turn off the heat. Let sit for an hour. After that time, the heavier sauce will sink and the thinner "sauce" will float on top. You can skim this top part off for tomato juice later. 
• Take this thin juice and add grated carrots, and ginger root, cooking it until the new vegetables softened, blend it smooth, and you've made a mock of V-8 juice. 
• Leave only the thicker sauce in the pot.
• Using your immersion blender, puree the thicker sauce until it's as smooth as you want it. I tend to make mine leaving some chunkier bits in there. The sauce may appear thin, but it will thicken as it cools.
• Ladle into hot jars, add 1/2 tsp salt, wipe the edges, tighten the ring, and place in the water bath canner.
• Process 40 minutes for pints, 60 minutes for qts.

Now why did I tell you to save all the liquid while thawing and squeezing? That's coming up.

Canned whole or diced tomatoes...

What you'll need
A bowl for the skins for feeding them to the chickens and the compost pile.
1 bushel of tomatoes, frozen. Romas fit whole so nicely into the jars without having to cut them.
Canning salt, or Sea salt, or Kosher salt*
Leftover tomato water

Canning jars, lid, rings
Water bath canner
colander
knife

Putting it together

• Place tomatoes in colander to thaw
• Peel the tomatoes. They should easily slip their skins while thawing.
• Place 1/2 tsp salt in each clean jars
• Cut tomatoes into desired diced size, I usually cut them into 8 pieces and cut them smaller when using them. Fill the jars with the tomato water liquid to 1" head space. Most recipes call for using hot water, but why waste all those vitamins and minerals?
• For whole tomatoes just stack them in the jars and press to expel the liquid. I've found that the water expelled when pressed gives you the 1" head space.  If not, fill with tomato water. You will have to add more whole tomatoes after pressing.
• Place jars in the water bath canner. Process 30 minutes.

The net from all of this canning, 50 pints of tomato sauce, 27 pints of diced tomatoes, and 27 jars of whole tomatoes. As an added bonus, 10 pints of mock V-8 juice.

When serving diced tomatoes as a side dish, mix a TBS of corn starch with the liquid. As it cooks it will thicken into a "gravy." Why waste those vitamins and minerals pouring them down the drain! Waste not, want not.

Enjoy for months to come.

Y'all have a blessed day!

Cockeyed Jo