WHAT ARE YOU CANNING TODAY?

[flowerbug]

...Those funky shaped heirlooms taste good, but they don't bottle very well.

we always skin, core and then chunk the tomatoes we put up so it doesn't matter what they look like. i'm not sure what you are doing with yours to worry about what they look like? are you concerned about them looking like distinct slices or quarters or halves or something else?

 

[LaurenRitz]

we always skin, core and then chunk the tomatoes we put up so it doesn't matter what they look like. i'm not sure what you are doing with yours to worry about what they look like? are you concerned about them looking like distinct slices or quarters or halves or something else?

They're harder to peel, so I use the weird shaped ones for puree or sauce. I do quarter them for bottling.

 

[flowerbug]

They're harder to peel, so I use the weird shaped ones for puree or sauce. I do quarter them for bottling.

oh, yes, we've had some really bad years with catfacing or other issues, but to peel them we dunk them in near boiling water for some seconds and the skin then comes off pretty easy for peeling.

i do the dunking before coring and put them in the sink of cold water to cool them back off again as it is hard to handle them when they are hot. we have a nice big double sink so i can run the cold water through from one side to the drain on the other side if i'm doing a lot of tomatoes (it is rare i'm not doing at least 7 quarts and often more than that).

the catfacing sometimes makes inclusions inside the tomato so i have to cut them carefully to get all of that out of there, which is a lot more work and time and i really try to get tomato varieties that don't do much catfacing. just makes for a harder canning season with as many tomatoes that we put up.

at the end of the season this year we had a lot of tomatoes with deep splits that were rotting on top and i didn't even bother to pick them. if we were really hard up for tomatoes i would have done them but we did well enough that i was, "Ok, let them go, the worms will eat them." but my inner tightwad was whimpering...

 

[Mini Horses]

but my inner tightwad was whimpering...

Yes!! But I toss mine to the chickens. Saves feed money, soothes my whimpers.

Today I need to process apples! Prob gonna fry, then WB in pint jars, like last batch. Love then for breakfast