How to Can Tomatoes

Image by Amber Shehan

July and August are tomato time here in Western North Carolina!  The farm markets are crowing about the lovely heirlooms available, and the volunteer tomato vines left behind in our empty chicken coop are giving me handfuls of sweet cherry tomatoes.

As awesome as a fresh tomato can be, there's only so many BLTs a person can stand (or so I'm told).  If you want to preserve that fresh flavor for winter months, you can always can tomatoes.

 Be prepared to be warm...canning involves a lot of heat in the form of boiling water, so enjoy your steam bath along with the lovely jars of red jewels you end up with.

The outline below will give you a step by step guide on how to can tomatoes using the water bath method.

I'll quickly cover two different methods, both the Cold Pack and Hot Pack.  They'll all start off and end up the same, so let's get started...

Get Tomatoes: You can use your own bountiful harvest, or that of your neighbor with too many plants, or grab a box of fresh 'maters from your local farm market!  In general, seven large tomatoes will fill one quart jar.  Heavy, low-moisture tomatoes like Roma hold up the best, but as you can see in the image on the right, Heirloom tomatoes preserve beautifully as well.

Get Your Jars and Tools Together:  To can tomatoes without a pressure cooker, you will need the following equipment:

Order Supplies Here!

• Jars and Rings:  I usually use both quart and pint jars just to have a variety of sizes, and the rings to go with them.  For ease, only process one size of jars at a time (one batch pints, then one batch quarts, etc.)
• Lids: Do NOT reuse old jar lids.  Go out and buy a pack of new lids.  You can reuse the rings and jars, but it is not safe to reuse the inner lids.
• Canning Pot:  You need a pot large enough to submerge your chosen size of jars under at least one inch of water, plus room for the boiling water to bubble.  If you have a canning pot with a rack, wonderful!  I do not, so I tend to use a big pot with a dish towel or two set on the bottom of the pot to provide cushion for the jars while they are processing.
• Tongs or Jar Lifter:  A jar lifter is worth the bit of expense, as tongs can be slippery to handle with heavy jars. The only burns I've given myself while canning were from using tongs to lift the boiling hot jars from the pot. 
• Small pan: You will simmer the new lids in this pot to sanitize them.
• Medium pan: For boiling water to blanch and skin the tomatoes
• Bowl of ice water: For shocking the tomato skins off.
• Kettle: For the hot water to fill the jars.
• Jar Funnel: I highly encourage the use of one of these...otherwise, it can be a huge mess!
• Ladles and Spoons:  Long-handled tools are great to have on hand.
• Lemon Juice: This is required to increase the acidity, and you won't taste it at all!  It also helps the tomatoes to retain their color and flavor.

The Process:  Once you have all of your equipment together to can tomatoes, you get to start the work!  

• Sanitize your jars.  
• If you have a dishwasher, you can sanitize your jars by setting the temperature extra high.
• If you do not have a dishwasher, rinse the jars and then fill your sink with boiling water, submerge the jars completely, and leave until ready to use.
• Start the Canning pot.  Fill it about halfway, put the lid on, and let it begin to heat.
• Start the Kettle heating.  This will be to fill the jars later on.
• Boil the lids in the small pan for about five minutes, then turn down to low heat. Allow them to rest in the hot water until needed.
• Remove the Tomato Skins:
• Wash your tomatoes and set up the bowl of ice water.
• While the water is coming to a boil, use a sharp knife to cut a small X in the bottom of each tomato, for easier peeling.  You can also cut out the stem spot now, if you wish.
• Set the medium pot of water to boil.  Once it is rolling, put a tomato or two carefully into the water.  After about 30 seconds, the skin will crack.  Use a slotted spoon to remove the tomato and put it into the bowl of ice water. The skin should slide right off!
• Cutting the Tomatoes (or not)
• Remove any bruised or icky spots and compost them.
• Slice, dice, quarter...chop them however you wish, depending on whatever goals you have in mind for these tomatoes. You can also leave them whole if they are small, which is my preference.  Some folks remove seeds, but I leave them in.

There are now two different options to consider before you proceed: Hot Pack, or Cold Pack. The difference in method mostly has to do with the standards for safety in canning.  I have used both methods with no problem, and without much discernible difference in results.

• COLD PACK:  This means that you do not cook the tomatoes before you put them in the jars.  Proceed to the step called "Fill the jars"
• HOT PACK:  This is considered a safer method to can tomatoes.  Simply add the chopped tomatoes to a pot and allow them to simmer for a bit.  This also gives you a chance to season them if you wish, before adding the hot mixture to the jars and proceeding with the next step "Fill the jars"

• Fill the jars:
• Use the funnel to pour the chopped tomatoes in, and use a wooden spoon to push them down gently to fill the jar up to within 1/4 inch of the top of the jar.
• Wipe off all contact surfaces to ensure good, clean seals.
• Add the liquid:
• Add lemon juice: 2 tbsp per quart jar, or 1 tbsp per pint jar.
• Fill up to 1/2 inch of the top with boiling water
• Remove the Bubbles
• Use a butterknife, or the handle of a spoon, to carefully move around the edge of the jar.  This moves the tomatoes around, ensuring any air bubbles are released.
• Put on the lids and rings:
• Wipe down the jars first if needed.
• Pull a lid carefully from the hot water, put it down on the jar, and snugly screw the ring on.  Do NOT tighten all the way.
• Process the Jars: 
• When the water in the canning pot is boiling, carefully add the jars one by one (or in a rack, if you have one).  Ensure they are covered with at least 1 inch of water, and keep the boiling going!
• They should sit in the boiling water for about 40 minutes for pints, and about 50 minutes for quarts. Add more boiling water as needed to keep the water volume above the jars.
• Remove the Jars:
• Lift the jars out of the water VERY CAREFULLY.  Try not to let them bump or touch each other, and put them down on a clean dishtowel waiting on the counter. 
• Remove the rings, or at least loosen them.  Otherwise, they can rust into place.
• Enjoy the popping of the seals as the jars cool!  If you haven't heard that neat noise before, let me explain. As the jar cools, it pulls down the lid and it will seal with a *pop* - you can test this by gently pressing the center of a lid when the jars are cool.  If the center of the lid pops up and down, that is not sealed.  You can store that jar in your fridge to use soon.



My happy diced tomatoes from August 2012

• The tomatoes will separate in the jar.  If you see chunks of tomatoes floating on a liquid layer, that is quite alright. You can avoid this next time by packing the jars a little tighter with tomatoes. (Check out my jars in the image to the right to see what I mean)

And there you are!  Once the jars are cool, its a good idea to label them with the date.  Try to use them up within one year for best results - I just turned last year's last few jars into lovely spaghetti sauce for a party of friends.  When you do go to use them, its worth it to strain the tomatoes but reserve the liquid, just in case you need to add it back into a thick sauce.  It is easier to add liquid than remove it!

Please post your reactions, questions, comments, or concerns.  Do you can tomatoes at home?  What methods do you prefer?

Putting away 2012 - Tomatoes and Cherries

A Busy Kitchen, by Amber Shehan
Candle-making, honey jars, tincture jars,
tomatoes, drying herbs, and more!

Phew...it is hard to find time to write when I'm so busy chopping, boiling, cooking, and eating really yummy food.

To start with, I found cherries at a really good price at the grocery store, and I got about 3 pounds.  So far, I now have:

• Cherry Jam: For this, I used the recipe in the pectin box.  Next time, I'm going to try Pomona pectin, or some other method with less sugar.  I ended up with four 8oz jars, and six 4oz jars of nice, firm jam!  
•  Dried Cherries: Dried in my dehydrator. Yum!
• Brandied cherries:   Rough chopped, pitted cherries submerged in brandy, and stored in a crock in the fridge.
• Cherry Cordial:  Cherries and their pits put in a jar, covered with vodka, to be strained in a few weeks and sweetened as needed.
• Cherry Stone Cordial: Cherry pits covered in vodka, to be strained in a few weeks and sweetened as needed.

Also working in their jars are new batches of tinctures and cordials, which will be strained and ready in a few weeks:

• Mint tincture
• Earl Grey cordial
• Damiana cordial

Tomatoes! Yay!  - by Amber Shehan

My heirloom tomatoes this year are taking their sweet time to change from green to red.  I knew that I wouldn't likely have enough to can from my few vines, so went looking for fresh 'maters in my town.

It turns out that there is a farm stand down the street from my house who has boxes of big, fat, firm tomatoes ready for canning.  I got somewhere between 12-18 lbs of tomatoes for a mere $5!

After a day or two of work, I ended up with:

• 2 quarts of cooked, herby tomato sauce
• 5 quarts and 2 pints of diced tomatoes
• A fresh spaghetti sauce for dinner, made with pork sausage and garlic and red wine, which left a few spare pint jars to go into the freezer!
• A really spicy barbeque sauce that I can't puree until I get a new blender, put in the freezer until later...

I've got more irons in the fire, too...what are you all preserving, making fresh, or enjoying from your yard, garden, or farm market?

Apple Picking & Processing 2011

J.H. Stepp Orchards, by Modern Scribe Photography

I live in an incredibly beautiful and bountiful area.  Western North Carolina has so much to offer in the way of local, healthy food that I'm becoming quite happily spoiled by my diet.  There's hop farms for brewers, local bison ranches, and in Hendersonville, North Carolina, you can't throw a stone without hitting an apple tree.  The winding roads around Lake Lure and Chimney Rock are a verdant place where orchards and small farm markets thrive.

My love and I recently went winding down that road with our housemates, a friend, and his six-year old daughter to pick apples from J. H. Stepp Orchards, a beautiful old orchard we picked from last year.  We missed the really sweet apples of late August and September, but still delighted in the bushel of Golden Delicious, Fuji and Rose Cameo Fuji apples that came home with us.

Stepp Orchards also has a wonderful common room in their barn, with a fireplace going to keep icy fingers warm, hot cider on tap, fresh apple juice, apple cake, and accessories such as apple peelers and corers available for purchase.  I picked up a handy dandy apple-corer and gorged on butterscotch apple cake while we all got assembled and directed to the proper picking places.

Calliope, by MSP

By the by, if you have an enthusiastic and bright child to bring along apple picking with you, I highly encourage it.  Boy, can they pick like little devils! And run. And climb trees. And not carry heavy apple baskets, at all.

Once we were laden with big, gorgeous apples, we didn't linger long at the orchard, because we had plans...oh yes, we had plans.  The bushel of apples, the gallon of apple juice, and a bag of fresh, clean sweet potatoes made it home with us in no time.

The rest of the day involved relaxing, for the most part, but I just couldn't wait.  Within a couple of hours of being home, we were diving into a still-warm pan of German Apple Cake!

In the month since picking, we're down to about 5 apples after we made everything...but we still haven't made all that we wanted.  We might just have to go again so we can have apple pie filling!

The complete list of what my housemate Sarah and I made from a bushel of apples:

Dried Apple Rings:  Soft and chewy, melt in your mouth, super-yummy apple rings!  And then the dehydrator started making the most TERRIBLE sound...time for a new one? Any suggestions from you food-preservation people out there?

German Apple Cake:  Nuh-uh. No way.  Not this recipe...if I tell you, I'll have to kill you.

Apple Sauce: (which became Apple Butter)  Easy to do...chop apples, put in pot with small bit of water or apple juice.  Cook down with a lid until soft.  Strain if needed, and ta-da!  If you want to turn it into apple butter, transfer it to a crockpot and season the ever-loving sense out of it with brown sugar and cinnamon and cloves and such, and then let it cook on low until you like it.  SO EASY, and smells soooo goooooood.

A happy apple crew, by MSP

Apple Pectin:  (Check out this recipe on Mother Earth News for reference) We did not succeed completely at this task...but we used up all the peels, cores, and otherwise unwanted bits of apples on hand in the attempt.  Our pectin didn't clear or settle well, because our apples were too sweet. Apparently, this works better with sour or crab apples, which I would have know had I read the entire recipe. Whoops!

Apple Cordial:  This is so fun, and so easy.  I peel my apples by hand, and leave flesh clinging to the peel.  I put the peels in a jar.  I put spices in the jar sometimes...othertimes, just apple-y goodness.  Then I fill the jar with vodka (or rum. or brandy.) and remember to shake it occasionally.  Once I've forgotten about it for a while, I strain out the peels, add sugar or sugar syrup to the alcohol, and bam! Apple cordial.

Apple Mead (Or Cyser):  A grand experiment has begun!  The jug o' juice that we picked up from Stepp Orchards was wonderfully tasty, but we stopped drinking it when it was half-empty.

Next, I heated water and melted a large pour of honey into it to make a must (un-fermented mead) and poured it into the gallon jug, and added one single solitary allspice bud.

I popped an airlock on the jug, and pitched the yeast the next morning.  We've got a perfect spot to keep the jug warm (between 80-84 degrees) and it's been bubbling merrily for about a week.  It will soon be bottled (if we can save enough...we keep tasting it and it's already dwindling rapidly).

Check out your local farm offerings for a U-Pick near you.  I used the Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project (ASAP) to find Stepp Orchards!

Recipe Box: Peach Butter

Peach Butter:  Image by Amber Shehan

Here's what my household accomplished in an afternoon...

Peach Butter
(Small batch, makes about 12 ounces or so)


1 lb. of diced, peeled peaches (4-5 med. fruit)
1/2 cup of sugar
1 teaspoon lemon juice
Seasonings:  Whatever you want! 

First, peel and dice your peaches.  Try not to eat them all, and leave a pound or so for the recipe.

Add the peaches to a cooking pot, add the splash of lemon juice, and let it come up to a boil on low to medium heat. 

When it's simmering nicely, you can throw it into a blender if you aren't fond of chunky bits, but that's up to personal preference. 

Return to the pot, and pour in the sugar and stir. Add your desired seasonings...we went for a dash or three of cardamom and a tiny dash of cinnamon.  Let it simmer on low for 25 minutes!

All that's left to do is store it or use it.  We filled an 8 ounce jelly jar to the brim and put it away in the freezer once it was photographed, cooled, and labeled.  The rest was also jarred, but put into the fridge for using as soon as earthly possible.

It's already appeared in a subtle but effective role as an ice cream topping, and will soon be starring as the sauce to be served on top of hot creamed corn fritters for dinner tonight!

Recipe inspired by:  Andrea'sRecipes.com

Recipe Box: Queen Anne's Lace Flower Jelly

Queen Anne's Lace by Modern Scribe

As I've discussed before, sometimes I think my neighbors must hate me for harboring a yard of unwanted pests and dingy weeds.  We encourage our yard to be an eco-system, rife with native plants and insects...which in our neighbor's world means "unmowed and disgusting!"

The truth is that we DO mow around the house to ensure that the native insects are at a decent radius from our doors and windows, but that we leave the edges of the yard a lunatic fringe of tall grasses, red clover, chicory, burdock, happy daisies, the tall, bobbing heads of Queen Annes Lace. 

I've only recently come to know Queen Annes Lace as a plant with uses other than being homes for many tiny crab spiders and aphid-farming ants.  I have read of her seeds' efficiency as an alternative birth control method, learned that her tubers are edible in early spring, and that infusions of her leaves can be taken for kidney and liver assistance, but none of these have been tried and tested in my home as of yet.

So I was terribly intrigued when I learned that you can make a delightful jelly from the flower heads of Queen Annes Lace, and I decided that I would make it as soon as I could.

I chose a lovely day, and after playing in the yard and tweaking the recipe to suit my mood and limited canning equipment, I made myself some lovely jars of pinkish flower jelly!  I have already thought of many potential adaptations for this simple, citrusy, floral jelly the next time I prepare it. Maybe a couple of pink peppercorns thrown into the mix, or perhaps grapefruit, grated carrot or ginger.

The following guide assumes you have at least some knowledge or experience of canning with a hot water bath method.

Queen Annes Lace Jelly

First, find you a good patch of flowers.  Make sure it is really Queen Annes Lace, and not her cousin, Poisonous Water Hemlock.  Queen Annes Lace has a hairy stem, and the distinct, piney scent associated with aromatics in the carrot family.  Poison Hemlock is smooth, and smells gross when you rub the leaf.

You'll likely be competing with many insect friends whilst gathering the blossoms, so be prepared!  You'll need at least 20 flower heads to make 2 packed cups of Queen Anne's Lace Flower heads.

Give the flowers a good rinse (or soak for five minutes, if you need to) to ensure all of the buggies are no longer in residence.

Boil four cups of water in a medium to large pot.  While the water is heating, trim the stems of the rinsed flowers all of the way to the base of the flower head. Breathe in deeply and enjoy...but note that the finished product is not as pungent as the fresh sap smells.

Toss in the flowers when the water is at a boil, stir, cover with a lid, and remove from heat. Allow the flowers to steep for as long as you wish.  I left mine for over an hour while I had lunch and a cold beer.

Strain the infusion.  I used a layer of cheesecloth in a standard colander to make sure the little bits of petal and bug were all out.  Toss out the spent flower heads.

Sterilize your jars! At this point, I placed my six 8 ounce jelly jars and their lids in a boiling water bath to sterilize while I prepared the lovely jelly.

Prepare the following ingredients so that all is at hand:

3 cups of the strained Queen Anne's Lace Flower infusion
3 1/2 cups of sugar

Juice of 1 lemon, or 1/4 cup of bottled lemon juice
1 packet of pectin (I used standard Sure Jell)

Pour the infusion into a medium sized cooking pot, and turn it up to a medium-high heat.

Add the lemon juice and the packet of pectin to the pot.  Stir the mixture well, and often.

Pull out your jars, lids, and rings to dry while you allow the pot to come to a full, rolling boil.

Add the sugar and stir constantly until it returns to a rolling boil.  Let it boil for one minute, and remove from heat.

Pour or ladle the very hot jelly into the jars carefully.

Wipe the rim with a clean cloth, and top each one with a sterilized lid.

Process your jars as you wish.  I use a hot water bath using the instructions given in the pectin box.  Make sure to follow instructions carefully, including adding extra time due to your altitude!  My jars were in for ten minutes instead of five.


Let the jelly rest for 24 hours before you pick them up and wiggle them around!  After that, it's open game on flower jelly.  It tastes like a light floral lemonade, or grapefruit juice!  It is excellent with a cup of tea and a toasted English muffin.

Recipe adapted from:
Foraging Foodie: http://www.foragingfoodie.net/index.html
The Wild Carrot - Queen Annes Lace: http://www.carrotmuseum.co.uk/queen.html