Our tomato plants did so well this year! They are actually still producing as we speak. I have canned spaghetti sauce, salsa, plain tomato sauce, and these dice tomatoes that I will share today. Matter of fact, I have a pot of fresh tomato soup simmering in the crock pot right now. I can't wait for dinner!
We grew some beefsteaks, Romas, and something between a cherry and a grape tomato. (That plant came from our neighbors and it was perfect! Each tomato was perfectly round and ruby red.) I like having the convenience of canned goods right in my pantry, and it makes it even better knowing that we grew the produce in our own back yard. I have noticed that I use cans of diced tomatoes in SO MANY recipes, and it's really not a hard process.
The first thing I did was prep the tomatoes. First, bring a pot of water to a boil. Drop a few hand-fulls of CLEANED tomatoes into the water and let boil for about 1 minute, or until the skins start to crack. Remove from the boiling water and place in a separate bowl filled with ice water to stop the cooking process. After all the tomatoes have been blanched, you can easily remove the skins, seeds, and inner core. Last, just chop the tomatoes up to desired sizes and continue using the Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving instructions:
Add 1 Tbsp. bottled lemon juice to each pint jar, 2 Tbsp. bottled lemon juice to each quart jar. Pack tomatoes in hot jars, pressing gently on tomatoes until the natural juice fills the spaces between the tomatoes, leaving 1-inch headspace. Add 1/2 tsp. salt to each pint jar, 1 tsp. salt to each quart jar, if desired (I did). Remove air bubbles. Adjust two-piece caps. Process pints and quarts 25 minutes at 10 pounds pressure (at sea-level with a weighted-gauge canner; see below for adjustment chart) in a steam-pressure canner.
For a dial gauge canner, which we have:
- 1 - 1000 ft: pressure of 11
- 1001-2000 ft: pressure of 11
- 2001-4000 ft: pressure of 12
- 4001-6000 ft: pressure of 13
- 6001-8000 ft: pressure of 14
- 8001-10000 ft: pressure of 15
For a weighted gauge canner:
- 0-1000 ft: pressure of 10
- 1001-10000 ft: pressure of 15
We were given quite a few tomatoes last fall and being short on freezer space, I tried this method. I opened one the other day for soup and ended up having to open two because I couldn't resist eating them from the jar. They ate delicious!
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