I'm canning tomatoes, waiting for that satisfying pop of the lids as the jars cool. So far, eight out of 15 pops.
When Alan's dad Ray was healthy, we would can tomatoes with him. He had an ambitious garden with from 10 to 15 tomato plants. The irony was that he never touched tomatoes, raw or cooked. I'm sure he accidentally ate cooked tomato from time to time but it would have been disguised somehow.
We would reap the bounty of Ray's garden and his generosity. For the past two years, no garden, no canning, no wonderful stash of jars of home canned tomatoes for using throughout the year. We had trouble finding acceptable store-bought tomatoes in cans. Sugar was added to some! Our marinara recipe turned sweet and kind of nasty tasting.
This year I bought a half peck of canning tomatoes at the Apple Valley Farmers' Market last Tuesday. The heavy paperbag sat on the kitchen floor, not inspiring me to start the process. I put it off until I noticed on Friday, the bottom of the bag was wet. Uh oh. Yes, some were 'overly ripe'. That afternoon I started with the water bath to loosen the skins and cooked them up. I lost probably a half dozen tomatoes to my procrastination.
Today I bought another half peck and went into a flurry of skinning, cooking, boiling jars and filling 12 and 1/2 quarts of tomatoes and one pint and a dab of wild plums from around the nearby pond. The plum jam is half plum, half sugar and still wonderfully tart--no fat!
I'm rewarding myself with a trip to a movie theater this afternoon and will stop to buy another box of canning lids so I can finish tomorrow--probably 8 more quarts.
Ten out of 15 pops.
When Alan's dad Ray was healthy, we would can tomatoes with him. He had an ambitious garden with from 10 to 15 tomato plants. The irony was that he never touched tomatoes, raw or cooked. I'm sure he accidentally ate cooked tomato from time to time but it would have been disguised somehow.
We would reap the bounty of Ray's garden and his generosity. For the past two years, no garden, no canning, no wonderful stash of jars of home canned tomatoes for using throughout the year. We had trouble finding acceptable store-bought tomatoes in cans. Sugar was added to some! Our marinara recipe turned sweet and kind of nasty tasting.
This year I bought a half peck of canning tomatoes at the Apple Valley Farmers' Market last Tuesday. The heavy paperbag sat on the kitchen floor, not inspiring me to start the process. I put it off until I noticed on Friday, the bottom of the bag was wet. Uh oh. Yes, some were 'overly ripe'. That afternoon I started with the water bath to loosen the skins and cooked them up. I lost probably a half dozen tomatoes to my procrastination.
Today I bought another half peck and went into a flurry of skinning, cooking, boiling jars and filling 12 and 1/2 quarts of tomatoes and one pint and a dab of wild plums from around the nearby pond. The plum jam is half plum, half sugar and still wonderfully tart--no fat!
I'm rewarding myself with a trip to a movie theater this afternoon and will stop to buy another box of canning lids so I can finish tomorrow--probably 8 more quarts.
Ten out of 15 pops.
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