Friday, September 18, 2009

operation tomato part 1


Our tomatoes are finally coming in full force, and days of tomato canning are upon us. First up were the cherries, way too many to snack on. For the first time we made sauce and canned these tiny packets of flavor, and for fun we did them separately from our regular tomatoes. I spent over 30 minutes harvesting these (below) this morning, while Sam was at school, from one sweet 100 and 2 sungold plants. Spending that long harvesting one crop makes me feel a bit like a farmer again; I revelled in it.


Sam offered to help when he got home, but he kept getting phonecalls.


So pretty!


To prep the cherry tomatoes for sauce-making, I washed and de-stemmed them out on the back porch. Sam prepped quite a few, but most of his went into his mouth.


(Did you notice the tomato foreman in the yellow hat?)
I filled the 6-quart pot (above, on the left) almost full (adding a few paste tomatoes), boiled it down, strained out the seeds and skins, and then canned the thickened cherry tomato sauce in pint jars.


Final yield (the seeds&skins to flesh ratio a bit surprising): 3.5 pints of summery sungold sauce. Come February, we'll be eating this tiny bit of goodness right up.

3 comments:

heather said...

this makes me melancholy as our cherry tomato varieties are starting to call it quits for the fall. A few blooms here and there, but not many these days.
I made some salsa using a mix of cherry and "regular" tomatoes. People loved it. I guess the sweetness of the cherry tomatoes gave it a little something.
I always end up using cherry tomatoes in my sauces too, because no matter how many tomatoes I plant, I never seem to have quite enough ready at once.
We'll have to have a tomato sauce swap someday. I only do freezer sauce though. After a jelly canning failure, I just haven't tried it again and don't have the equipment anymore.
Happy Garden days ahead!

CarrieAlair said...

Yum, yum, yum! That is an amazing bowl of tomatoes. The sauce looks fabulous too. Way to go supergardener!

Catherine said...

The bowl of cherry tomatoes is so beautiful. What a wonderful harvest! xo