I'm Carolyn Washburn with Utah State University Extension and today we're going
to be talking about one of
America's very favorite of home canning processes. That of tomatoes. Tomato is
the most popular home canned food and we want to make sure that we're doing it
correctly and safely and so let's talk about it for a few minutes.
You know in 1999 the guidelines for canning tomatoes changed. They lengthened
the cooking time and they have added more acid to them because we've grown a lot of
low acid tomatoes and because botulism in the soil. It's very critical that we
follow the approved recipes from USDA that you might find on the national center
for home food preservation website. Or even if you chose to use the
Bale Blue Book. Those will give you approved cooking and recipe time.
Very, very critical because you want to ensure that your family has safe food.
And even if you've been canning tomatoes for years, maybe you'll find a few little
guidelines today.
The great thing about canning tomatoes is that they are so easy to can because you
just simply slip the skins. After you've been harvesting those tomatoes at the end
of the summer and you've been eating that wonderful flavor, now it's time to save a
little for winter. And so you simply take you're tomato and you're going score just
a little bit under the stem. Now these tomatoes where washed and prepared and
ready to cook. And then on the base of the tomato, I'm going to take and score
just a little "X" at the very base. And then I'm simply going to drop it into
a pot of boiling water and leave it there for about 30 to 60 minutes -- 30 to 60
seconds. In that length of time, the skin should start slip off and begin to peel
and it makes tomatoes very, very easy.
If for some reason that doesn't quite come that quickly, then go ahead and
re-submerge it in the pot of water until it is ready to slip.
Now once you have done that, you want to quickly take and remove it from the
boiling pot of water into a dish of cold water. So that you can stop the cooking
time, and also it makes it much easier to handle the fruit so it's not so hot.
Taking my fruit out, you can see how very easily now, it just goes ahead and slips
right off the tomato.
You know, it took an act of congress to decide if our tomatoes were going to be
a fruit or a vegetable. Congress couldn't quite decide because they fall right in
between a low acid and high acid food.
So to make a tomato a real fruit, because they were, by congress, declared a
vegetable, and so that I can still water bath them, I've got to make sure that I
make them, safe with acid. So once I have taken and I have slipped my tomatoes skins
the most popular way of canning tomatoes is a stewed tomato. It's whole and half,
whole or half tomatoes with no liquid added. What it means is I just simply fill
my bottles as full as I possibly can. I would just go ahead and push in my
tomatoes and then I would take a knife and push them down, squashing them, till
my bottle was totally full. It would not need any added water or tomato juice
because I have filled it with the tomatoes.
Once I have done that, I still have to go ahead and acidify it. That's a process
where I'm going to add more acid to my tomatoes to ensure that they will safely
be processed in a water bath canner. To do that, I'm either going to add to my
quart jar, four tablespoons of vinegar. Two tablespoons of lemon juice or a half
teaspoon of citric acid that you can purchase in food specialty shops or
online or even from a pharmacist.
Now yes, these products also change the flavor of your tomatoes. And some people
may not like that quite as much, so you can always offset the acid by adding a
little bit of salt, if you like that flavor. And you can add a tablespoon--
teaspoon of sugar. The sugar and salt do not effect the safety of the tomatoes.
But the acid certainly does.
So to water bath these correctly, and even if you chose to pressure can them,
You still need to go through the process of acidification. Now when I canned just
a pint of my tomatoes, I simply added two tablespoons of vinegar or one
tablespoon of lemon juice. And it doesn't matter if you choose white or brown
vinegar, apple cider, that's just simply a matter of your choice of flavor.
Either of them are perfectly safe as long as they are five percent acidic base.
Once I have my jars filled, I have put my acidification in, I'm going to go ahead
and make sure that I clean my top of my rim off very, very good because I want my
lid to seal. I wash around it, I'm going to wipe around it, and then my lids that
have been simmering in, boiling hot water at first, then simmering on the stove.
I simply use my great little tool so nobody gets burned.
I put my lid on my jar and I put my ring on it. Now I don't tighten my
ring too tight. Just a nice little tightness because all it is doing is
holding that ring on my jar when I put it on my bottles and in the canner.
I'm going to give these tomatoes a water bath. I'm using a water bath canner.
That means that my jars will be totally submerged having a bath with one inch
of water over the top of their rings. So that it is a total bath. I put them in. I
put my lid on. I put them on the stove, on high, and once I have a boiling water
bath canner with steam coming out, I can start my time.
Whole tomatoes, whole and half tomatoes, canned with no added liquid, take
ninety-five minutes of cooking. I know that's longer than you might have done
in previous years, you might have only done them twenty or forty-five minutes.
But remember, in 1999, the cooking times changed because of the acid of the
tomatoes and because of the botulism in the soil. You want a safe product.
If you don't want to do a stewed tomato, and cook that long, there are other
recipes where you may partially do them on the stove. You're going to be doing a
hot pack instead of a raw pack. And that can shorten the length of canning time.
And also, you can always do tomatoes in a pressure canner. But make sure you have
a pressure canner and that you're following the guide lines correctly.
When I put my raw pack into my water bath, my water can already been hot. About a
hundred and forty degrees. It's a raw pack I don't want it too hot, but that will
shorten my canning time.
Once I've canned my tomatoes and finally the ninety-five minutes has passed, I
simply turn off the stove and let it sit for another five minutes. Then I can go
ahead, remove my lid, and because I certainly don't want to get burned, I'm
going to use something that very safely removes my jars from my canner and I set
them on the cabinet on a towel. Rather than putting them directly on a cold
cabinet, that could cause the jar to break.
And then I wait for that little ping, ping ping. The best sound at the end of the day
when you've been canning tomatoes. You know those jars seals. Twelve hours later,
I will come back and I check, and if the lid is down solid and doesn't pop back,
I know then that I can go ahead, remove the ring, because that's the way I store
them, without a ring. That way it will never rust, I will label my jar, when it
was canned and I can go ahead and store it on my shelf. I can enjoy those
delicious canned tomatoes in soups or casseroles, spaghetti and even salsa
all winter. Tomatoes right out of your garden. What a great way to do them.
And they become a very inexpensive way to enjoy tomatoes and even if you choose
to just pour a little bowl full, you'll be delighted that you canned you're very
own tomatoes.
So give them a try. But make sure, one more time, proper canning methods.
They're available in the Bale Blue Book, or from USDA, on the national center for
home preservation food site. Go ahead and check them out.
All of the updates are listed there.