How to preserve a Bushel of Tomatoes in a Day

I ordered a bushel of tomatoes since a cool, rainy summer was giving me less than I wanted for the winter from the 22 plants I had in my garden. The catch: they were to arrive on Thursday morning and I was going away for a week on Saturday (and I had to pack too!).

But, hey, I had the tools, the space, and the experience from past tomato sessions to draw on. I'd pick up the tomatoes and start. Hopefully I'd be done sometime on Friday.

I got them done in six hours and step-by-step, here is how I did it.

Step 1: Tools and materials

These are tools I had on hand. Only one was a "new to me" purchase this year: a giant colander for 25 cents from a yard sale.

Tools:
1. Grill - fire-roasting is so much nicer than scalding/skinning, and I love the flavor imparted to the final product.
2. Table(s) - if you don't have "wings" on your grill, you'll need an additional table.
3. Colander - this year's was huge; I've used a smaller one in the past.
4. Bowl to hold the colander (and drained tomato stock)
5. Slicing knife - to break up the roasted tomatoes to release juice
6. Masher - to crush the roasted tomatoes to further release the juice
7. Spoon - for transferring crushed tomatoes to the tomato mill
8. Tongs - for turning the tomatoes (doing so with fingers not recommended) and transferring them from the grill to the colander.
9. Tomato mill - this is a high capacity one that I got last year for about $40 from Lee Valley. This is much easier to use than the round metal ones you often see in thrift stores. While plastic, it is high quality and I expect to use it the rest of my life.
10. Tomato debris catcher - for my set-up something rectangular worked best.
11. Kitchen compost bin - for the debris after the pulp extraction
12. Pots - one for collecting the tomato pulp and one for collecting the tomato stock
13. Water boil canner - a tall stock pot with a cake rack in the bottom of it works fine
14. Jar lifter - indispensable to safely move hot jars in and out of the canner
15. Tongs - for taking jar lids out of hot water
16. Blender (or food processer) - to puree the sauce and stock enhancements.

Materials:
1 A bushel of tomatoes
2. Sauce ingredients: I used garlic, hot peppers, red wine vinegar, fresh oregano, fresh basil, salt
3. Stock enhancing ingredients: I used parsley, lemon thyme, fresh yellow oregano, salt, lemon juice.

Comments

[okme2]

This made me exhausted. Great post.

[fluffydragon]

I noticed just one problem with your method - you should be using a canner specifically for acidic canned foods. Even if you boil it for 35 minutes per batch, you may not be preserving them correctly. You really need a pressure canner.

[fluffydragon]

Ignore my comment.. I did some quick googling, and it looks like tomatoes are actually fine to water bath. I wanted to do some black beans a few months ago and found out I couldn't do them without a pressure canner/cooker.

[jojosdad]

Love the idea of roasting the tomatoes. I have also tied the tomatoes up in a piece of cheesecloth hung over a pot to collect the tomato stock.

[catastrophegirl]

i notice you use a funnel to fill the jars - i recently found out that mason jars actually screw right onto most blenders! might mean different measurements for your recipe with adding ingredients to the jars instead, but it could be less messy next time?
[the jars my coffee comes in work too!]

[amtrudell]

The funnel is used to fill canning jars with cooked sauce or cooked stock.  You also need to keep the jar rims that the lids seal to free of jar contents or the lids won't seal.

Canning jars are designed to withstand the temperatures of a home boiling water canner or a pressure canner and the handling the jars undergo. 

The blending I do is of all the herbs and garlic that go into a full batch of sauce or stock (one jar of blended material into a pot that will fill six pint jars).   The whole sauce or stock needs to cook together before being sealed in jars.