I went out this morning to plant fall peas and there were more tomatoes. Mostly slicers this time. It was time to start processing them. The first to ripen were Amish paste tomatoes and I have been coring them and popping them in a big bag in the freezer until there were enough to bother with firing up the canner and heating up the kitchen with a stock pot. The kitchen window sill was full of ones that hadn’t been frozen. The frozen ones were dumped in a sink of tepid water, the fresh ones were scored on the blossom end and had boiling water dumped over them. While they cooled, the frozen ones were peeled, chopped and put in a stock pot. Then the fresh ones were also peeled and chopped. The whole mess seasoned with salt, herbs, and citric acid and cooked down to pizza sauce consistency. Seven half pints were canned and all sealed, and there was enough left over to fill a 4 ounce jar that will go in the freezer for the next pizza night. A half pint jar makes 2 or 3 pizzas for the two of us and what is left in the jar is frozen until needed again. I will have another batch to do when there are enough so we have enough for our pizzas in the coming months.
This was the first non pickle canning session of the year. My memory photo of today is of ripe grapes that were about to become jelly, but the grapes aren’t ripe yet this year. The refrigerator is filling with quick brined and fermented pickled cucumbers, and quick brined pickled jalapenos, fermented sauerkraut and dilly beans. The canning shelves still have some of last year’s applesauce and this year’s canned Bread and Butter pickles, and Garlic Dill pickles. Tonight, the pizza sauce will join them. The freezer has pasta sauce, green beans, and peas. The storage area of the basement has onions and potatoes, and the garlic braid and a basket of drying basil are in the kitchen.
There are enough frozen tomatillos to make about 3 half pints of simmer sauce, but I will wait until there is enough for 6 or 7, then another canning session will be held. I hope there are enough tomatillos to do that and also a small batch of tomatillo/jalapeno jam. The simmer sauce can be used as salsa or over meat or veggies. The Tomatillo/jalapeno jam can be used like pepper jelly on cream cheese with crackers or as a condiment on a Charcuterie board.
The sunflowers are great at attracting native bees and the hummingbirds. The bees gather pollen on their legs until it looks like they can’t possibly fly.
Thunder is rumbling up the river. We had heavy rain showers yesterday afternoon here, but went in after dinner to walk the rail grade last evening and it was dry there. The forecast looks like this will be the norm again for a while, but next week is much cooler daytime temperatures.
Stay safe everyone.