Last night Kanien and I canned our first run of tomatoes. It was fun, and it gave me a chance to break in the best Father's Day present anyone has ever received...my 26-quart stainless steel with aluminum clad base stockpot. If you're wondering how big a 26 quart pot is...I'll inform you. It's big enough to hold our biggest pot inside it and it won't even touch the edges. The handles do, but the pot doesn't. It's big enough that you could do almost 50 pints of salsa in ONE BATCH!!! So we were in for a treat. The only thing Kanien and I do with our tomatoes is make sauces. Sometimes I'll add some to a soup, but sauces are what we do most. Hence, I wondered why I didn't just can the sauce instead of the tomatoes. It might take more time initially, but it would be a lot easier to add some meat, cook it for a bit, and viola--Dinner. So we thought we'd try. We blanched HUGE batches of tomatoes in the stock pot. We peeled them, squished them, and started making sauce with them. If you've ever made sauce with fresh tomatoes, you know that even the Romas we were going come LOADED with water, so you've got to cook them quite a while to get it all out. At 11:50pm we ended up with 15 1/2 quarts of sauce. Here are some pictures of the event.
I'm chopping some Garlic. I used sixteen cloves of garlic. That's the most I've ever used in a sauce. It's 1 1/2 bulbs.
Stock Pot! Oh yeah! That baby is sweeeeet....
But not as sweet as these two!! They picked all the tomatoes...and there were a lot! Marcella got upset at us for not paying attention to her, and not letting her touch the boiling pans, but otherwise she was a great helper.
She loves to point!
There's the sauce after 30 minutes of simmering. It's already gone down a couple of inches from where it started.
Here's the fresh basil I used. We grew it in a planter box outside our front door. It was about 1 1/2 cups of fresh cut basil.
Here's the end product: 15 1/2 quarts of Jon's Genuine Pasta Sauce
Oh yeah...I'll can pasta sauce with anyone who comes out to see us in SLC. I can supply some of the ingredients, but not all. So if you want to can pasta sauce, let me know.
I'm chopping some Garlic. I used sixteen cloves of garlic. That's the most I've ever used in a sauce. It's 1 1/2 bulbs.
Stock Pot! Oh yeah! That baby is sweeeeet....
But not as sweet as these two!! They picked all the tomatoes...and there were a lot! Marcella got upset at us for not paying attention to her, and not letting her touch the boiling pans, but otherwise she was a great helper.
She loves to point!
There's the sauce after 30 minutes of simmering. It's already gone down a couple of inches from where it started.
Here's the fresh basil I used. We grew it in a planter box outside our front door. It was about 1 1/2 cups of fresh cut basil.
Here's the end product: 15 1/2 quarts of Jon's Genuine Pasta Sauce
Oh yeah...I'll can pasta sauce with anyone who comes out to see us in SLC. I can supply some of the ingredients, but not all. So if you want to can pasta sauce, let me know.
7 comments:
Holy sweet!! It makes me feel kinda lame cause all the tomatos here didn't really grow right...with the whole lots of water thing and all. but the sauce looks great jon, kanien, and marcella!
That looks so good I can almost smell it. I would love to have some so I guess I'll be making a trip to your house sometime so you can help me make some!!!!
Oh yeah...come on down. Let me know if you're serious and we'll fix a date. You'll probably have to supply your own tomatoes. I estimate we used two bushels for our 15 quarts of sauce. I'd rather do a weeknight than a Saturday, as Saturdays are the only days I have off.
mmmm, mmmm yummy! It's too bad I won't be around to enjoy it all!
sorry, I was logged in as Spencer and didn't realize it...that last comment was made by me.
Tomatoes are poisonus everyone knows it! just look at the statistics.. anyone who ate tomatoes in 1875 are now dead, same as those who ate carrots that same year. seriously they look great I hope you enjoy your labors.
Jon, What a man to be excited about a cooking pot! I have a funny pot story I'll have to tell you sometime, but it's a little long for a comment. Well, you did a great job canning. Did you ever think you'd like to can?!
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