As a child, I would help my dad in the kitchen and pretend to be on a cooking show. I would even have him set up the camcorder to record me on my show. My favorite recipe was homemade cookies, but no matter what was on the menu, I wanted to teach the world how to make it. As I write these recipe blogs, I can't help but be reminded of that little 8-year-old redhead who always wanted to teach people out there to cook, even if no one was listening.
Some things never change. I could have never imagined such a thing as the Internet back then, much less a blog, but 20 years later, I'm still doing my own little cooking show.
Today's lesson focuses on canning tomatoes at home. My dad knows someone with a green thumb and he brought me about sixty tomatoes from that person's garden. I didn't count, but it was enough to make 18 pints of tomato sauce. Since I could never use that many tomatoes before they spoiled, and since I refuse to let anything go to waste, I canned them and stuck them in my deep freezer for future use in sauces, stews, and other tomato-based recipes.
Enough with the digression. Here's the how-to:
1. Gather materials. I didn't want to make a huge investment by buying a pressure canner and I made do with things that I have around my house in place of standard canning fare. For this, I used: pint jars, a funnel, a large bowl, a pot for sterilizing, and a pot for cooking.
2. Wash the tomatoes and then cut a shallow X on the bottom.
3. Place the tomatoes a few at a time into boiling water and cook them just until the skins begin to split. Remove them with a slotted spoon and place them into a bowl of ice water.
4. Peel the tomatoes, core them, and dice them. When canning a small amount of tomatoes, I just cut them up with a knife. For a large amount, I use my food processor in the interest of time.
5. Cook the tomatoes. I season with some salt, sugar, and garlic. My husband and kids have a limited appreciation for more varied ingredients. I made sure mine got to a boil and then let it cook down a little before I canned it.
6. When the sauce has finished cooking, place the pan in ice water to cool it down before canning.
7. Sterilize the jars in boiling water. Ideally, you pull them out and can them immediately. Use tongs or a specially designed can holder for this.
(If my sauce hasn't cooled before I'm done sterilyzing, I will stick them in the boiling water again for a moment before I fill them, just to be sure.)
8. Fill the jars using a funnel. Leave 1/2" of headspace.
9. Clean any tomato sauce from the rim of the jars and seal them.
10. At this point, someone with a pressure canner would use that to seal the jars. I simply leave them overnight upside down and in the morning, they are sealed. Press the lid to make sure. If it pops back up, the jars are not sealed. They can then be stored in your cabinet, fridge, or freezer.
