A Bushel of Tomatoes

I have spent WAY too much time with tomatoes over the past two days.

I decided to make some salsa to use the jalapenos from my garden.  I went to the grocery store to buy some tomatoes.  I was looking at the selection of tomatoes trying to decide which kind to buy, when I noticed about 7 bushels of tomatoes.  A bushel of tomatoes was only $14.99.  How can you pass up a deal like that? 

I thought about it a lot.  A bushel is a lot of tomatoes.  And I knew canning them would take a lot of work.  But I didn’t have any plans for the next two days and I did want to make salsa and I wanted to can some more crushed tomatoes.  So, I brought home a bushel of tomatoes.

The bushel- with some tomatoes already missing

 Yesterday I started working on the salsa right after I ate breakfast and I am just now (38 hours later) processing the last batch of jars of salsa.

To make the salsa: Wash tomatoes.  Put them in boiling water for about a minute.  Take them out of the boiling water.  Put the tomatoes into some ice water.  Peel off the skins.  Put them in a bowl.  Repeat this process in batches of about 7-10 tomatoes.

naked tomatoes

 When all the tomatoes were peeled, then came the dicing of the tomatoes.  I think this is what took the longest.  I had to cut out the core of the tomatoes and then dice up the remainder of the tomato.  Then I had to chop onions, green pepper, jalapeno pepper, garlic, and cilantro.

This was about 4 hours of tomato preparation and vegetable chopping.  I had to run over to church for a meeting, so I got to take a little break from the salsa.  When I got back I mixed up all the tomatoes and veggies, and added some vinegar, tomato paste, and cumin.  The salsa went onto the stove where I brought it to a boil and stirred it for the next 30 minutes while it boiled.  While the salsa was boiling I got the canner started and got the jars and lids all ready.  Then the jars boiled in the canner for 45 minutes.  After working ALL day, it was really disappointing to see that I only got 5 jars (quarts) worth of salsa.

Salsa!

 This morning, I thought I would start with something a little bit easier so I canned some crushed tomatoes.  I had to go through the whole tomato cleaning and peeling process and then cut the tomatoes into quarters before putting them into a pot on the stove.  I used a potato masher to crush them up a little.  I brought the tomatoes to a boil for 5 minutes.  Then came the canning.  I ladled the tomatoes into sterilized jars along with 2 tablespoons of lemon juice to ensure it was acidic enough.  Then the jars went into the canner for 45 minutes.  I got 5 jars of crushed tomatoes, which will be good for making chili, spaghetti sauce, lasagna, and maybe some other things too.  And there was half a jar which I'll just put in the fridge to use in the next couple of days.

At some point during the crushed-tomato-making I decided I needed a little snack of chips and some salsa that I had made yesterday.  So, I opened up a jar, dipped a chip right into the salsa in the jar, and I so very pleased with the deliciousness of the salsa.  Knowing that all my hard work the day before had produced something so yummy gave me the motivation I needed to continue on with dealing with the tomatoes.  For dinner I made a quesadilla with the salsa inside along with salsa on the side.  Totally worth all the work.

quartered tomatoes

crushed tomatoes

While the crushed tomatoes were processing I began the salsa making process all over again.  I had enough tomatoes to make a batch and a half, so that meant even more tomato preparation and veggie chopping than the first salsa go-around.  Many hours of chopping followed.  I did get 7 quarts filled with salsa.  And I even had some left over that probably would have filled another jar.  However, my canner only holds 7 quarts and I didn’t want to deal with the time and effort of canning one jar by itself.  So, I just filled a couple of smallish plastic containers with salsa and I’ll put it in the freezer.

Yesterday I made the mistake of cutting up the jalapeno peppers without any sort of protection on my hands and so my hand that had most of the contact with the pepper was burning most of the night from the spiciness of the peppers.  I looked up how to make my hands stop burning and someone suggested veggie oil.  I rubbed some veggie oil on my hands and that helped quite a bit.  So, today I wore some plastic gloves and my hands are just fine tonight.

the scene of the canning- this poor kitchen sure got used a lot the past 2 days

jars in the canner

The results:

5 1/2 quarts of crushed tomatoes

13 quarts of salsa

That should be enough to last us till next year when hopefully my own tomatoes grow better than they did this year (there’s quite a few green tomatoes on my plants, but no sign yet of anything close to red tomatoes).