Putting up Tomatoes - June 2017

The tomato crop is coming in fast and furious.  Each day I'm picking a nice big bunch of heirloom tomatoes off of the many different varieties we grow.  In past years, I've waited until the tomatoes are red and ripe, but this year I've changed my strategy.  I'm never afraid of trying new things.  I learned that if I waited until they were ripe, the stink bugs damaged them so badly that they were ugly.  If the stink bugs didn't get them, then big black worms bored into them, ruining them.  Finally, if they were able to mature prior to the stink bugs and worms attacking them, then the squirrels and birds ransacked them.

Enough! I said.  Now my new strategy is to pick them off the vine when the begin to turn pink.  I bring them inside and allow them to ripen minus all the competition outside from bugs, worms, squirrels and birds.  In 2 or 3 days, they are ready to eat. So far I've met with success and will continue this process.  You live and learn.  For the past two years, we've eaten some and froze some, but we didn't really have enough to can.  Fortunately this year was different.

Due to the different varieties, the tomatoes are all different types and sizes.  I like the variety.

The plethora of delicious produce we have makes everyone smile...

The only problem with the tomato harvest is that we're producing more than we can keep up with.  I'll admit - this isn't really a problem as we put tomatoes up in the pantry.  Tricia put up a bunch of stewed tomatoes in pint jars the other day.  This weekend it was raining and we couldn't do anything outside so we made salsa.

In This Post from 2014 we showed the recipe and process for making homemade salsa.  We made a batch using 20 pounds of tomatoes.

It took us a while to process all the tomatoes, onions, garlic, peppers and spices, but we finally did it and in so doing, we filled the biggest pot in the kitchen.

That looks delicious and it is not even done yet!

At long last we have a rolling boil and we'll just let it cook for a bit, reducing so that the flavors are concentrated and the consistency is right.

We canned 10 quarts of salsa when all was said and done.  In readying the pantry to stack these quarts of salsa up, we discovered some of the salsa we made back in 2014.  The seal was still good, so I popped one of the jars open.  Still delicious!  We made quick work of emptying the pint jar while talking in the kitchen.

Two and a half gallons of salsa!  It is nice to have this put away.  We'll enjoy eating all of this within the next year.  This batch is special as it is the first year we've made it with our homegrown onions as an ingredient.  Stewed tomatoes?  Check.  Salsa? Check.  We're eating lots of pico de gallo now.  We plan on drying some tomatoes next with rosemary.  Those came out great the last time we made it.