What are You Eating from the Garden?

[SPedigrees]

I chopped up the lone last fresh tomato into a salad last night. Ah, it's grocery store tomatoes from now on, until next summer's harvest. A sad thought.

I plan to use my little indoor grow kit to provide me with salad greens this winter.

Soon I will get inspired to turn the many bags of frozen tomatoes, and leftover ground bison, into a vat of spaghetti sauce. I need the freezer space!

 

[ducks4you]

@SPedigrees, you need to learn how to hot water bath can your tomatoes. I will open a jar in the winter and eat them right out of it, and they taste like I canned them yesterday.
It is Worth the time and trouble.

 

[SPedigrees]

@SPedigrees, you need to learn how to hot water bath can your tomatoes. I will open a jar in the winter and eat them right out of it, and they taste like I canned them yesterday.
It is Worth the time and trouble.

I'm too scared to try canning for fear of poisoning myself and/or someone else. Just call me chicken! Even back when I made jam and sealed the jars with wax, I didn't trust it enough to store in the cupboard, but kept the jars in the fridge. Anyways these frozen tomatoes are already earmarked for spaghetti sauce. If it makes enough, I'll freeze the excess sauce. Since there are few things I love as much as spaghetti, this works for me! I have been given a jar or two of home canned tomatoes over the years, and you're right, they are nearly as good as fresh from the garden.

My grandma canned a lot of things, but was winding down canning operations when I came along, so I never had the opportunity to learn from her. She taught me a lot of other kitchen skills, but not that one.

Here's my overstuffed kitchen freezer, but I have at least another bag of tomatoes in the upstairs freezer:

 

[flowerbug]

if you have the right variety of tomatoes (avoid those noted as low-acid types) and don't water them down during prep they will be safe canned in a BWB.

food poisoning is often caused by cross-contamination from meats or vegetables that weren't washed or cooked fully before combining with other ingredients or got contaminated some other way.

acids tend to kill off most of the harmful bacteria and the worst of the bacteria that causes botulism won't grow in an acidic enough environment.

the few times a jar of tomatoes goes off is because somehow we missed a bit of spoiled inclusion which doesn't ruin the whole batch. it's been very rare (we've done thousands of quarts of tomatoes in my life that i remember starting helping out at about age 6 and i don't remember that many having issues).