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It's Time To Defrost Those Tomatoes
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| Last jar of 2012 pizza sauce. |
I'm down to my last jar of pizza sauce; it's time to make more! Ordinarily, I would have started canning pizza sauce in July or August. But I did not have a very good tomato harvest this summer, likely due to too much rain and very little sun. We had enough for fresh eating but extras for preserving amounted to only a few every other day. I popped these into the freezer for a future sauce making and canning session.
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| Frozen Amish Paste tomatoes from this summer's pickings. |
A couple of year's ago I discovered that peeling frozen tomatoes is so much easier than the boiling water/ice dunk method. Now, however, I have my Roma juicer/squeezer, so I use it instead. It's easier still!
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| Tomato juice cooking down with homegrown thyme, oregano, & rosemary |
Also easy, is cooking down the juice in a crock pot. It never scorches and uses less electricity than my electric stove. I add everything during the cooking down stage except salt. I add salt to the canning jars when I fill them. I figure if salt ever becomes scarce, I at least have my canned goods seasoned to taste. Also I add my lemon juice or citric acid as I fill the jars. On that note, I wanted to mention an interesting post over at Thoughts from Frank and Fern, “Why Acidify Tomatoes?“
Sadly, I only had one crock pot's worth of juice, making my sauce seem all the more precious. And since this is a several day process, the crock pot spends the night in my spare fridge in the pantry.
Except, horror of horrors……
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| Is this a good time to mention I can be a tad clumsy? |
What can I say? Except that I discovered Aldi's now carries organic tomato sauce (marinara or tomato basil) for about $2 a jar. Looks like a stock-up trip is in order.
Source: http://www.5acresandadream.com/2013/10/its-time-to-defrost-those-tomatoes.html
