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?

How should I store honey?

On your hand, in the sunlight, is an exhausting method of
storing honey. (Image by Modern Scribe Photography)

I recently had a customer inquire about the proper storage of honey.

Honey does not "go bad" if left at room temperature. Finding a temperature between 65-75 is ideal, but I surely don't bother putting a thermometer in my cabinet to find out.

Honey has been used as a preservative since ancient Egypt, and beyond.  Organs of kings have been found in jars of honey in excavated tombs.

You can leave it wherever you like, as long as it has a lid on it.  The moisture in honey can evaporate if it is uncovered, and it gets dusty and gummy and icky.

When honey crystallizes from chill temperatures, you can restore it to it's liquidy state by setting the jar in very warm water or any other gentle heat source.

I prefer not to nuke my honey in the microwave, because it gets too hot too quickly.  And then it becomes radiated, sticky napalm.

I never store my honey in the fridge.  It makes it thick, cold, hard to scoop out, and nowhere near as runny and messy as I like it.  But if you want to, go ahead...it won't hurt it any!

Visit the Pixie's Pocket today to see the honey blends available now!

Let's Talk About: Tinctures, Elixirs, and Cordials

Tincture corner of my herb shelf, A. Shehan

I love herbs, and I also enjoy alcohol. You dedicated readers know for sure that I adore honey...so I generally do my best to combine those three ingredients in as many forms as possible.

My cabinets are full of jars, and those jars are full of strange floating bits in colored liquid. It makes me feel my most witchy to open that cabinet and bring out strange brews to share with friends.  I have many jars that are medicine, and jars that are for fun, and jars that are a bit of both.

Tinctures are medicinal extracts of herbs in alcohol. Some folks use moonshine and other high-test likkers for their tinctures, but I tend to use a medium-brand, triple-distilled vodka so I don't have to dilute the tincture until it's ingested.  If you aren't into vodka, a nice brandy is a good alternative.

The process for making a tincture is simple:

Get an herb, fresh or dried.
Put said herb into a jar.
Pour alcohol to cover the herb.
Put a lid on it, and give it a good shake every now and again
Strain after 3-6 weeks and label clearly.

Now, tinctures are potent!  When you take tinctures, please do a lot of research if you are dosing yourself, or find a practiced herbalist to give you guidance.  Some tinctures, such as poke root or teasel, only need a couple of drops per day to be effective and more than that can cause you harm.

Elixirs are the sweetened version of those alcohol-expressed medicines.  I tend to make "sipping" elixirs out of the more tasty herb tinctures.  These can almost cross the line into cordials, which while they may have medicinal benefits, are mostly just for pleasure.  The sharp tang of elderberry cordial is lovely, but I try to save it for when I'm feeling sick.  To use an elixir, just pour a bit into your hot tea, or into a brandy snifter to sip on for a while.

Then there are the less-than-tasty herbal medicines...adding sweetener to the more bitter or astringent herb tinctures can make ingesting them a more palatable experience, especially with kids.  Valerian and Horehound are good examples of herbs that can use a splash of honey to cut their bitter strength!

Elixirs are easy to make:

You can start out with a tincture and add a simple syrup (recipe below).  Add the cooled syrup to tincture in small bits, then shake the mix to blend it, and then taste.  If it isn't right, add more and taste again!  Be careful, these are meant to be sipped as they are still potent medicine, and this sweetening and tasting process can get you loopy.

Simple Syrup:
Boil one cup of water.
Add two cups of sugar (or 1.5 cup of honey, or agave, or whatever you prefer!)
Stir until the sugar is completely dissolved and remove from heat.
Allow to cool.

Otherwise, you can use the lazy method. Pour a dollop of honey into a strained tincture and give it a shake.  It works, but it ends up being super sticky and thick compared to the simple syrup process described above.

I hope that helps to demystify some of the process and allow you to play around with your Junior Alchemist kit in your kitchen, and have another way to use your herb harvest before the final frost takes it from you!

Cordials and Tinctures, 2011, Amber Shehan

Here are some cordials and tinctures that I have in the works.  All of these are in 40% vodka.

In the back, we have Cranberry cordial.  I buy cranberries when they go on sale every holiday season, and freeze them if I don't use them immediately.  This jar has been full for close to a year, and will remain there until the berries have lost a bit more color to the alcohol.  Then there will be a sugar syrup added (perhaps brown sugar this year) and it will sit and settle until Thanksgiving or Christmas.  

Clockwise, we next have goldenrod tincture.  Goldenrod will have his own post soon, so I'll move on to the next little jar.

Yarrow was a strong sister plant for me this year.  She sprang up tall and magnificent from the patch I prepared and transplanted her the first year I lived here.  The fronds on this plant were humongous, and her flowers plentiful! Yarrow tincture is good for keeping insects at bay when applied externally, and is an amazing wound cleaner as well.  She'll be handy to keep around for next spring.

Lemon Balm, Sweet Melissa, fills out the next jar with her flat, wide leaves.  I crushed them with my fingers as I put them in the jar, to release her lemony, sharp oils.  This plant is excellent for anxiety, depression, any emotional rollercoasters and overwhelming dizziness can be slowed down by a couple drops in water and a couple of deep breaths.

Lastly, we have valerian and mint.  Some folks can't stand the smell of Valerian, but I'm quite fond of it.  The mint is there to make it palatable, sure, but it also has it's own benefits in the realm of gas relief and relaxation.  In a couple of weeks, I'll strain that jar and add some honey to the tincture and shake it together for a tonic cordial.  My delicate-tummied love sometimes ends up unable to sleep at night with gut pains keeping him awake...but after one good slug of valerian and mint cordial, there's a couple of burps and then a symphony of snores!

This is my last fresh-harvest hurrah for the season.  This week, I'll be making tasty treats using the elixir method with rum instead of vodka, and leftover apple peels that would otherwise be discarded.  Winter is nigh, and I'm set on having plenty of tasty, warming medicines to get me and my loved ones through!

October marches in...

Photo by Modern Scribe Photography

Cold and windy, dark and ominous, October is marching in, leaving muddy tracks on my carpet to mix with the windblown leaves.

I've been away from this blog and my shop for much of the warm months. I've been delving into gardening, raising chickens, working full time hours outside of the home, drumming, socializing, and altogether being a happy and busy bee.

Now the cold is returning, and bringing with it my nesting instincts. I'm ready to clean and create. So far this fall, I've put away some applesauce and pie filling after picking at Stepp Orchard in Hendersonville, NC. I have one jar of peelings soaking in rum, and another in vodka, for making cordials. I have a jar of spiced vodka infusing in my cupboard as well.

I'm eying the plants outside to prioritize the autumnal harvest...the burdock is dying back and after the first frost, can dig up his root for eating and pickling, oh, and the chicory, too.  The primrose is bright with flowers, and I've been pulling leaves of yarrow for drying.  We have a big jar of dried shitake mushrooms, and I'll soon be getting some pumpkins for carving, roasting seeds, and making pumpkin butter and pies.

We have recently used an extra bit of canvas to create a wind block for the chicken coop. The biddies are all fluffy and feathered out as the days get colder. They are happy, healthy, and producing well! Our first winter in caring for them is coming, and I'm confident we'll all make it through with all of our toes.


Enjoy this crisp season of woodsmoke, chill wind, and rustling leaves. I'll be in better touch with all you folks out there.