Cooking with Chef Jo: Canning Tomatoes in Winter

Canning in winter is so much more comfortable. We heeat our home with a wood stove, so it does double duty during the winter. We just pulled two cast iron eyes off an old gas stove to cook on. Ours is an old wood stove and the cooktop is rusted in spots. It's not energy efficient like the newer models, but it works.

So what do I can in winter? Every harvest time for tomatoes, I'll wash, core, cut out the bad spots, and bag up 2-gallon bags of this produce and store them in our chest freezer. I'll wait until winter to make my sauce and diced tomatoes. My canners are in too much demand with all the other vegetables that need to be canned immediately like green beans, peas, corn, pickles, and assorted other vegetables during the other months. Tomatoes can definitely wait. By water bath canning my tomatoes in winter it serves another purpose. It adds humidity to the air. Wood heat is great except it's a very dry heat. Any wood product (furniture) and your sinuses suffer with this dry heat. This year is the exception because of the garden FAIL, but this is what I usually do.

 How about dried beans and other legumes? Soups and stews? Chilis? Meats? The amount of food you can can in winter is almost endless. I can almost can  canner load every day during winter. That's 5-19 pint jars worth of food stuff every load. Think of the time savings and the efficiency since we're already heating the house with wood anyhow.

Enough about that. Today I'm making tomato sauce and diced tomatoes on my wood stove. The diced tomatoes will go quick enough. The tomatoes are a breeze to peel because they are partially thawed and slip their skins easily. I took out twelve 2-gallon bags out of the freezer the night before and left them in the sink overnight. I'll process them two different ways: those tomatoes that are still frozen solid will be cut in half and go into my big stock pot, and those who can slip their skins easily will go into a dishpan to be diced. It usually comes out to a 75:25 ratio frozen solid to partially thawed. My water bath canner is already on the wood stove providing moisture to the air. The big stock pot is placed on the other eye to allow the tomato halves to thaw and simmer while I deal with the diced tomatoes.

Keep in mind, we still haven't purchased propane for our gas stove yet. So canning on the wood stove is essential.

Canning Diced Tomatoes

• Place the tomatoes to be diced, in a large strainer. I bought a sink sized colander from Amazon years ago. I allows me to strainer a large quantity of food stuff a one time.  A must have for any bulk, self sustainable canner like me.
• I'll place a clean dishpan under this colander to catch any juice that drips out during this process. Dishpans are cheap enough from the Dollar Tree.<G>
• I'll slip the skin off the tomato and place the skins in a bowl. The chickens love these!
• When the colander is full, I'll line up canning jars that I've pulled from the dishwasher and begin filling them with the tomatoes I dice.
• Once filled, leaving 1" head space, I'll add 1/4 tsp of canning salt.
• I'll ladle up the juices from the dishpan and pout into the jar.
• I debubble, wipe the rim with vinegar, and place the flat and ring on the jar.
• I've placed the plate from my pressure canner into my water bath canner so I can can more jars at one time.
• I'll place my jars into the canner. Once the canner comes back to a boil, I'll set my timer for 30 minutes.
• Once the timer has gone off I'll remove the jars and let sit for 24 hours. Wash them and store them.

Now what you've probably been waiting for... my tomato sauce. Now we add oregano, onion, garlic, and basil to our tomato sauce. It's in most of my tomato based recipes anyhow. If you don't want it, don't.I use this as a base for Sloppy Joe's, chili, spaghetti sauce,pizza, and meat loaf glazes. It's for every recipe that I use tomato sauce in. Remember, it's been on my wood stove while I prepared and canned. Now, those tomatoes have released their juices and reduced some in my 3 hours of diced tomato prep time. Twenty pounds of tomatoes went into the diced tomatoes.

Jo's Tomato Sauce Recipe
 What you'll need

40 lbsTomatoes, halved and reduced
1 TBS salt, Kosher, canning, sea salt, Himalayan Pink
2TBS dried Oregano
3 tsp black pepper
2 TBS dried Basil
1 head of Garlic, peeled and minced
2 medium onions, minced or 1/4 cup dehydrated
2 medium bell peppers, minced or 1/4 cup dehydrated (optional)


Putting it all together

• After the tomatoes have warmed and are all thawed, strain off the liquid. SAVE IT!! This is tomato juice for drinking you to can it later.
• You are left with most of the pulp and skins of the tomatoes. Return this to the pot* and heat (low to medium).
• Add onions, herbs, and bell peppers to the pot.
• Simmer for two hours to let the herbs and vegetables give off all their goodies to the sauce.
• With a stick blender, blend the mixture smooth.* 
• Ladle into hot jars, wipe rims, lid and ring jars.
• Place in water bath canner for 30 minutes.
• Remove from canner and let sit for 24 hours. Wash and check seals, store in your pantry.

Note*- Notice I left the skins of the tomatoes in the pot. This adds to the color, flavor, and taste of my sauce. There's a lot of vitamins in those skins too. Why waste them?
I like my sauce with little chunks in it so I don't blend mine totally smooth.

As I mentioned earlier, there are a number of ways to use this sauce. I'll repeat this process several times over the winter until I use all the tomato harvest for the year. In a good garden year, I'll net 300 lbs of tomatoes. Now that's good homesteading economics!

Unfortunately, last year's garden was a bust so I ended up buying Roma tomatoes from a local produce house so I did them earlier. Yuck!! The taste was not as good and vibrant as our home, organically grown tomatoes are. Well, there's always 2020's harvest to look forward to. Really yummy for my tummy!

Y'all have a blessed day!

Chef Jo