Canning weather
Aug. 31st, 2021 12:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
offcntrTemperatures dropped a good ten degrees Monday and Tuesday, down to high 60s/low 70s. I had no clay for the studio; what can I find to occupy my time?
Yup, it's canning season.
We didn't can tomatoes last year. Had an abundance of sauce from previous years, and also the world was on fire. Literally. During the week or so I had to can in, ash was falling like snow and I couldn't open the kitchen windows to let out the heat.
About three weeks ago, we used up the last of our home-canned tomato sauce--I thought, more anon--so I started looking for a chance to restock. Yesterday was perfect.
Except for the fact that canning lids were totally unavailable. Winco had non, BiMart had none, and the staffer I talked to said they couldn't get them anywhere. Everybody had jars with lids and rings, but I have a pantry full of empty jars, so really didn't want to buy more.
Denise did an inventory, We had exactly a dozen narrow mouth lids left, about two-and-a-half dozen wide mouths. So I went hunting. I have far more narrow-mouth jars, of course, but I did manage to round up eleven wide. I also found six more jars of tomato sauce in the cupboard above the fridge, five still good (the seal had failed on the sixth).
After that, it was the usual. Trim, cut and sweat green onions. Wash and slice the mushrooms--I discovered that hoary old food hack actually worked, cut them up with a hard-boiled-egg slicer. Saute them with salt, pepper and olive oil 'til they're yummy and brown.
Rinse and stem the tomatoes. Realize I don't have enough, so drive up to the farm stand for another box.
Fill every bowl in the house with tomatoes. I'm a potter. That's a lot of bowls. Slice them into wedges; I don't bother to skin. Hey, it's roughage! Heat up two heavy-bottomed stock-pots on the stove, drizzle in some olive oil, dump in a big bowl of tomato wedges. Twenty-four shakes of dried basil, eighteen of oregano, and a big bay leaf. Stir well, cover, and come back to stir again every five minutes for half an hour. At this point, the tomatoes have broken down nicely, and you can pour the sauce back into the bowls and fish out the bay leaves. Clean off any stuck-on bits of tomato from the bottom of the pot, rinse and dry, put back on still-hot burner. (This is important to keep the next batch from sticking down and burning.) Repeat until all tomatoes are cooked.
Take a break for supper--I ran about six ladles through the food mill, added brown sugar, tomato bouillion (basically red salt), white pepper and home-grown thyme to make tomato soup, served with grilled-cheddar sandwiches. Start the canner full of water boiling while you eat. I also ran the canning jars through a short cycle of plain hot water in the dishwasher--they'd been washed the previous night--so they'd be hot and sterile-ish.
After supper, we mixed in the mushrooms and onions, filled the jars (first adding two tsp of lemon juice to be sure they had enough acid. Romas should be fine, but I want to be sure). Added sterile lids and rings, and simmered in the water-bath canner for 35 minutes. And repeat.
At noon, we had fifty lbs. of tomatoes, four bunches of green onions, and a couple of pounds of mushrooms. By 10:30 we had 21 quarts of sealed tomato sauce, and another not-quite-full jar in the fridge.
Not a bad day's work.
Yup, it's canning season.
We didn't can tomatoes last year. Had an abundance of sauce from previous years, and also the world was on fire. Literally. During the week or so I had to can in, ash was falling like snow and I couldn't open the kitchen windows to let out the heat.
About three weeks ago, we used up the last of our home-canned tomato sauce--I thought, more anon--so I started looking for a chance to restock. Yesterday was perfect.
Except for the fact that canning lids were totally unavailable. Winco had non, BiMart had none, and the staffer I talked to said they couldn't get them anywhere. Everybody had jars with lids and rings, but I have a pantry full of empty jars, so really didn't want to buy more.
Denise did an inventory, We had exactly a dozen narrow mouth lids left, about two-and-a-half dozen wide mouths. So I went hunting. I have far more narrow-mouth jars, of course, but I did manage to round up eleven wide. I also found six more jars of tomato sauce in the cupboard above the fridge, five still good (the seal had failed on the sixth).
After that, it was the usual. Trim, cut and sweat green onions. Wash and slice the mushrooms--I discovered that hoary old food hack actually worked, cut them up with a hard-boiled-egg slicer. Saute them with salt, pepper and olive oil 'til they're yummy and brown.
Rinse and stem the tomatoes. Realize I don't have enough, so drive up to the farm stand for another box.
Fill every bowl in the house with tomatoes. I'm a potter. That's a lot of bowls. Slice them into wedges; I don't bother to skin. Hey, it's roughage! Heat up two heavy-bottomed stock-pots on the stove, drizzle in some olive oil, dump in a big bowl of tomato wedges. Twenty-four shakes of dried basil, eighteen of oregano, and a big bay leaf. Stir well, cover, and come back to stir again every five minutes for half an hour. At this point, the tomatoes have broken down nicely, and you can pour the sauce back into the bowls and fish out the bay leaves. Clean off any stuck-on bits of tomato from the bottom of the pot, rinse and dry, put back on still-hot burner. (This is important to keep the next batch from sticking down and burning.) Repeat until all tomatoes are cooked.
Take a break for supper--I ran about six ladles through the food mill, added brown sugar, tomato bouillion (basically red salt), white pepper and home-grown thyme to make tomato soup, served with grilled-cheddar sandwiches. Start the canner full of water boiling while you eat. I also ran the canning jars through a short cycle of plain hot water in the dishwasher--they'd been washed the previous night--so they'd be hot and sterile-ish.
After supper, we mixed in the mushrooms and onions, filled the jars (first adding two tsp of lemon juice to be sure they had enough acid. Romas should be fine, but I want to be sure). Added sterile lids and rings, and simmered in the water-bath canner for 35 minutes. And repeat.
At noon, we had fifty lbs. of tomatoes, four bunches of green onions, and a couple of pounds of mushrooms. By 10:30 we had 21 quarts of sealed tomato sauce, and another not-quite-full jar in the fridge.
Not a bad day's work.
no subject
Date: 2021-09-14 01:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-09-14 05:19 am (UTC)Though I admit, I've been posting without my computer glasses lately. I also use them for glazing, and have been too lazy to get them back out of my back pack.
no subject
Date: 2021-09-14 06:05 pm (UTC)