Hello my name is Tamika Latibeaudiere-Palmer and I'm a public health inspector with York Region,
today we are here to learn how to can tomatoes. I’m at York Region Food Network Community Kitchen with
Joan Stonehocker and friends Ethan and Erin. Thanks Joan for sharing your community kitchen with us.
It’s a great opportunity to learn about food safety and how to safely
home can. You’re very welcome. Shall we get started? Let’s get started. Okay let’s start by washing
the tomatoes. We need to do that to get rid of the harmful bacteria.
Ethan and Erin do you want to help wash? Of course! Let’s first start by washing
our hands. First Erin you want to wet your hands, apply a little bit of soap, lather
for 15 seconds, then rinse, use a paper towel to dry your hands and then turn off the taps with a paper towel.
Okay Ethan now we’re going wash the tomatoes under cool running water.
You want to make sure that you give the tomato a good, firm rub. There’s two types of canning methods:
The boiling-water or hot water bath method and pressure canning.
Today we’re going to use the hot water bath method. Alls you need for that is a large pot like this
a rack and proper canning jars that come with snap lids and rings. The only thing that you can’t
use again is a snap lid but you can buy them separately like this. What’s the difference between
the two methods, Joan? So the boiling water method is good for high acid foods, for low acid
foods you'd need to use a pressure canner because it reaches a higher temperature.
And what’s a high acid food? A high acid food has a pH of 4.6 or less. I also know Joan,
that you have to make sure that you bring the water rolling boil water at a temperature
of 212°F or 100°C to ensure you kill any of the bacteria. That’s right, that’s
very important. Joan, as tomatoes are borderline high-acid food and for safety we should always add
bottled lemon juice or citric acid to make them more acidic. We want to make sure
we kill any germs that could cause botulism which can make you really sick. As you know
Tamika, it’s always important to use a tested recipe for home canning. Tested recipes will
tell you what type of canning method to use and should also tell you the acid level, processing time,
temperature and give you information on container size. I have a tested recipe
from Bernardin. Let’s use it. Let’s prepare the jars. We always need to make sure that we're
using jars that are meant for canning. First we need to remove any jars that have nicks,
cracks uneven rims or sharp edges. And remove any rusted or dented bands. Then we’re going
to wash the jars in hot soapy water and rinse. The jars then go into a water bath canner
two-thirds full of water heat to a boil and then keep them hot. Next the recipe says to
put the tomatoes in boiling water for 30 to 60 seconds until the skins begin to
crack. So this is what it looks like when it’s it cracked and then we put it right
into the ice water bath. Okay now the tomatoes are cooled we can start our production line.
It’s easy to peel them, you just grab the tomato and peel the peel right off like so.
Erin and Ethan can you help us do this. Sure. Yep. Great, I’ll leave you to peel and we’ll
move down to where Tamika is going to core and cut the tomatoes.
You just take off the end like that, there’s a little bit of skin on there, so we can get
rid of that and then just pop it into quarters, and it'll be ready to go in the jars.
Okay once we get all the tomatoes prepared, we’re going to clean up this area and get ready for putting them in the jars.
Okay, now that we’re ready to start canning let’s get our lids ready. We’ll take water that
is just boiled in the kettle and pour it over the lids. We don’t want to boil these lids
because it can ruin the seal. We just want them warm and ready to use. Okay, so now we’re
ready to start canning, we’re going to take the jars out of the hot water where they’ve
been sanitized and staying warm and bring them over and get a tablespoon of lemon juice
in each jar. Erin and Ethan can you do that. Yep. Of course. It’s important that we add
the lemon juice so that we can prevent bacterium such as botulism from growing in our canned
tomatoes. How does the lemon juice stop that from happening? Well botulism doesn’t grow
in acidic conditions and the lemon juice will prevent botulism from growing. That’s great
a full tablespoon in each jar. Okay now it’s time to get the tomatoes in the jars. We load
a few tomatoes in, I’ll show you how and then you guys can get started on your own.
We go that far and we take this dowel and you squish them down, then we keep going,
add some more and press again. Okay, we’re just about at the top. Now we leave a half
inch at the top of the jar as head space because when we put the jar in the boiling water we
want the air to be able to escape and there needs to be some room there for expansion.
Right up to the line in the jar is the half inch. So we make sure we them smashed down
and all of the air out and then that one's ready to go. Once we've got the jar filled to
the half inch we take a clean cloth or paper towel and wipe the rim clean. We need a really
clean rim so we get a good seal. The final step is to put our lids on. We have our warm
lids here and this handy magnet tool. We grab a lid, get it on the jar, it’s okay to touch
the edge with your fingers and then we put the ring on and screw it up just fingertip tight
because as I said the air need to escape from the jar. And that one’s ready to go, okay
now why don’t all the rest of you get going and let’s get these jars filled.
The recipe says we need to boil the tomatoes for 85 minutes. Okay kids, while those tomatoes are processing
why don’t we get the labels made. You can do a label for each jar, they need to say
what’s in the jar and what year it was made.
Okay now the jars are done processing and they’re really hot, we’re going to use these special tongs to move them over to the
tea towel to leave them for 24 hours to seal. It’s still important to double check isn’t
it Tamika? It is absolutely. You want to make sure you check your jars for any discolouration,
mould, or bulging lids. It you see this do not eat the product. Okay, over the 24 hours,
you’ll hear a little pings like music to your ears as the jars seal, and you can check it
the next day by pressing on it, it won’t make any sound. If it hasn’t sealed where early
on, it will bounce up and down and in that case you should put it in the fridge and use
it right away. And then we’ll store them in a cool, dry place and use them within one
year. Okay, this has been a really great day. Thank you guys for all your help, Tamika for
your expertise, and we have a couple of jars of tomatoes that we made in our community
kitchen program for you to take home. Thank you so much. I learned a lot and we had a
great time. Great. Thanks for teaching us how to can tomatoes. You’re welcome.