Home Canning for Beginners: Easy Peasy Canned Tomatoes
- Alexandra H.
- Sep 7, 2017
- 3 min read
Our garden has been bursting these past few weeks, and we were encountering a good kind of problem. Namely, what do we do with all these veggies? Growing up, I remember fondly my mom canning peaches and pickles. Erik's dad cans every year out of their garden, so we decided to try it for ourselves and blog about the experience in case anyone out there doesn't know what to do! Today, we are going to can our tomatoes.
The first thing you need to do is sanitize your jars. In order for your food to stay preserved and to not spoil, you need to make sure that all microorganisms are dead. For us, we place our glass jars in a pre-heated oven at 240 degrees F. Leave the jars in the oven for 20 minutes before filling to ensure that your jars are completely sanitized. Also, do not remove jars from the oven until right before you are ready to fill them! If these steps aren't followed, you aren't going to get rid of the microorganisms and your food will spoil!
In order to really can tomatoes, you need to blanch them to remove the skins. Just place them into almost boiling water for about one minute and then place them directly into an ice bath. Here, we removed the vine and the cores of the tomatoes before we blanched them. We find it to be a lot easier to peel them that way.
Action shot of the tomato skins peeling right off!
Another shot of the skins peeling right off!
So the next step, after you have your tomatoes peeled, is to take a jar right out of the oven and fill them up! Make sure to leave 1/2 inch of head space at the top of the jars. in each jar we put Ball citric acid, 1/4 tsp per pint or 1/2 tsp per quart (you can also use lemon juice).
Here, we are filling up the jars. Just put on a funnel and fill the jars up!
Here, we use the tool that came in our Ball jarring kit to make sure that there are no air bubbles after we pour into the jar. Air bubbles in the canning process can introduce microorganisms into whatever you are canning. All the air bubbles need to be out! Just use a tool to move around the contents of the jar until all the bubbles are out.
Ok, the next thing we have to talk about are the lids for the mason jars. We used Ball lids, and to prepare them, you just let them soak in hot, but not boiling water so that the seals will be able to, well, seal properly. IT IS VERY IMPORTANT THAT YOU COMPLETELY WIPE OFF THE RIM OF THE JARS BEFORE YOU PLACE THE LIDS ON OR YOU WON'T GET A SEAL. Sorry for the caps lock but it is really important. Also, we are using a pressure cooker and you need to very carefully read all of the instructions that come with your cooker before you attempt to use it! They can be an awesome tool if used correctly, but dangerous if you don't follow the directions!
And this is the final product! After the jars get done cooking according to the manufacturer's directions and the recipe you are using, they need to sit on the counter to cool down. If you do it correctly, in a few hours the jars will start "popping" and that is when you know they are sealed properly! Can't wait for an excuse to use these tasty tomatoes! These will stay good for several years, but I don't think they will last that long around my house!
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