Posts Tagged ‘ tomatoes ’

Food Preservation: A Day of Home Canning

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Food Preservation: A Day of Home Canning

I recently shared my tomato chutney recipe, but I didn’t mention that on the same day I also made marinara sauce. For those of you who have yet to tackle home preservation, I thought it might be interesting for you to see what a day of canning looks like. I started with 40 pounds of tomatoes – not a lot by my usual standards – and processed most of them in a little more than five hours. In the end, I added 8-1/2 pints of chutney and 7 quarts of marinara sauce to my pantry – not bad for half a day’s work. 1:00 start making chutney 1:15 chutney ingredients in pot, ready for 2 hour boil 1:15 move chutney to back burner so I can begin with the marinara sauce 1:16 begin chopping ingredients for marinara sauce 1:35 discover that I turned on the wrong burner for chutney; remedy the situation 1:40 turn heat on under marinara; start cooking onions, peppers, and garlic 2:45 finish chopping ingredients for marinara. 3:00 put water bath canner on to heat 3:10 wash jars 3:15 put lids and rings on to sterilize 3:25 put chutney in jars and set to boil 3:30...

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Spicy Chorizo Soup and Chow Chow

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Spicy Chorizo Soup and Chow Chow

As the weather cools in the States, gardens are slowing down and many of us are shifting to meals that warm us up. Over on Popcorn Homestead, you’ll find one of my family’s go-to cool season meals: chorizo soup. Whip it up with fresh tomatoes and peppers from the garden and top it with the salty crunch of tortilla chips or baked tortillas and you’ll soon know why it’s a family favorite. And if you’re pondering what to do with the green tomatoes still hanging on the vine as autumn approaches, may I suggest a batch of chow-chow? I shared a little bit of nostalgia as well as my recipe for this relish made from green tomatoes over on New Life on a Homestead recently. It’s an excellent addition to a hot dog bun, though not like anything you’d find in a store.   Photo: Flickr user dickdotcom

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A Cure for Watery Homegrown Tomato Sauce

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A Cure for Watery Homegrown Tomato Sauce

With many gardeners in the thick of their tomato harvest, stock pots are bubbling with tomato sauce, marinara sauce, pizza sauce, homemade ketchup, and lots of other bright red tomato goodness. If you’ve ever made sauce from fresh tomatoes, you know that no matter how much you cook it down, the sauce often separates, leaving an unappealing watery puddle under your pasta. Not good. Even worse is a watery pizza sauce (soggy crust!) or ketchup. Years ago I figured out a way to combat this problem. When I feel that the sauce has cooked down to the right consistency, I pull out my metal sieve and set it right on top of the boiling sauce. As the sauce bubbles, the thinner liquid boils up through the mesh. I use a bulb baster to suction it off, saving the flavorful juice to add to soups or stews. Be careful – at this stage the sauce can be quite volcanic in its bubbling, and your hands will be right in there as you work. If there’s still a fair amount of liquid in your sauce, the sieve will fill quickly and may become submerged. I usually try to prop it up...

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Preserving Tomatoes as Salsa

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Preserving Tomatoes as Salsa

While my summertime has been wet enough to mean very few tomatoes, I know many of you are just seeing the fruits of your labors in the form of juicy red tomatoes. Salsa time! Salsa is one of our favorite canned goods; we use it not only as a snack, but it’s also a staple ingredient that I use in chili and Mexican dishes. It’s a great way for me to preserve not only the tomatoes, but peppers and onions from the garden, too. I’ve tried a number of recipes over the years, and this one is a keeper, getting thumbs up from my entire family. This recipe calls for chopped vegetables. My easy, cheat-y way to do this is with a food processor using the metal blade. I simply core and quarter the washed tomatoes (I do NOT peel them; who’s got time for that?), pulse them until they’re the consistency I like in a salsa, and then measure them directly into the stock pot. I do the same with the peppers and garlic. If you don’t have a food processor, use a knife and aim for a quarter-inch dice on the tomatoes and onions and an even...

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Tomato Math – How Many Plants is Enough?

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Tomato Math – How Many Plants is Enough?

One of the primary reasons I garden is to fill my pantry with canned fruits and vegetables that are (almost*) free of bpa and pesticides. Of all the different things I preserve, tomatoes are far and away the most-used ingredients in my household; it seems I’m constantly pulling a jar of some sort of tomato product or another out of the pantry. In previous years, it’s been pints and quarts that I put up from our big California garden. I ran out of the canned goods I brought with me when we moved some time ago  and I’m reduced to buying canned tomatoes – it’s killing me. (And yes, the movers DID think I was nuts. But I needed the jars; why not bring them full?) As the time for planting a garden nears, I’m gearing up to once again fill my pantry with tomatoes from the garden. In the past, I’ve planted as many as 40 tomato plants in a season and always had plenty for me as well as lots to share, but my space wasn’t nearly as limited. Here on this small lot where (ironically) full sun is scarce, there’s not room to wantonly plant excess....

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Welcome

It’s one thing to think, “Hey, I’d love to be more self-sufficient!” and quite another to implement a lifestyle change that might require learning some new skills.

Attainable Sustainable is about bridging the gap between wanting change and making it happen without becoming overwhelmed. Nobody’s saying you have to go get a tractor and a cow. Attainable Sustainable is about discovering – one step at a time – how to make changes in your life to support a sustainable lifestyle.

The Author

Kris Bordessa has been gardening for most of her life. She's been authoring books and writing features for the past ten years or so. It's about time she combined the two, don't you think? [More about the author]