I'm done for the day – of course none of the tomato projects is done!  But there are two gallons of pureed pulp waiting to be made into something tomorrow, in addition to enough tomatoes prepared for 4 batches of tomato preserves, apples sauced and ready for several batches of apple jam AND spiced applesauce, and more tomatoes in freezer bags measured and ready for a couple of batches of chutney.  And still more apples to attend to!  At least they are not as acidic as tomatoes, so won't stain and burn the hands as badly.  For those who can stand it, gloves really are a good idea when handling fruit, but alas, some of us just prefer the bare handed method, resulting stains and all.

How come yellow tomatoes seem to stain more than the red ones?

Will grudgingly admit to being absolutely overwhelmed by the produce in this house!  It took a while to get going this morning, between that and the hands being so sore that they didn't work right.  All better now.

Pots of water are simmering.  Gave up and threw the tomato puree into the BIG crockpot with some veggies and herbs and let it do it's thing without my assistance and will pc that tomorrow, or late tonight.  Sort of used the BBB recipe for "Italian Tomto Sauce" adding our home grown garlic to the pot.

May have enough tomatoes to mix up some Sloppy Joe base as well, but it will be a while before I know that for sure.

It Caramel Apple Jam time!  And will use the apple cooking juice to make some apple "jelly" as an experiment.  Gotta run…   :snoopy:

Oh, that Caramel Apple Jam recipe is terrific!  I used a bit more than the 6 cups of pulp, just because that was what was in the measuring cup, and it worked out fine and got me an extra half pint, with barely enough for a taste of the finished product.  (One of those scraping the pan, ladle, and stirring spoon kind of deals to fill that last half pint!)

Y-U-M-M-Y!!!!  That is some VERY good stuff!  Especially if you like apple butter, without quite so much cinammon and sugar.

Will definitely be doing more of this stuff.  At the rate I expect to be consuming it, there may not be much left for gifting!

Now on to the experiment with making jelly from the "juice" left from boiling the apples.  It will be cloudy, but we shall see.  Hmmm.  Maybe I should use it for jalapeno jelly?  Well, now.  Maybe I will think about this some more…

Hang in there with the tomatoes LOL – in a month or so we will all wish we had a nice fresh tomato

I always feel that way about the last boxes of tomatoes – it's bottomless…..

And no, I know of no easier way to dice up the ripe tomatoes except by hand ;)

The rotel was a time consuming job but now I am glad I did it for sure.

Dede

who just made 2 gallons of BQ sauce for 40 lbs. pulled pork and a gallon of "goo" to doctor up a bunch of pork n beans tomorrow

Yellow Tomato Chutney (p. 51 of the BBB 100th Anniv edition) is cooking.  Misread the yield, and had 8 half pints ready to go – but the pan is overflowing with chutney, and glancing back – it makes 7 pints!  So, we shall use those last 8 half pints and put the rest into pint jars.  Then go buy some MORE half pint jars!

Awww.  So much good stuff, and here I thought we had more half pint jars than ANYONE could possiby use!  Wrong, again… 

okbarb said:

I am done with the canning from the garden but have become very interested in this topic and plan to purchase a pressure canner and experiment with all kinds of things.  I am so very glad that this topic is here.  Dede, I especially want to thank you for your posts.  I never NEVER would have been brave enough to even think of canning meats if it weren't for you.

Do you know that you are a wonderful and talented bunch of ladies?!  And, yes, 52, you are wonderful and talented too!

You are welcome and I am glad to hear this – for years the only meat I ever had canned was venison (YUM) or veggie soup with venison or beef, etc. and then joined canning groups on Yahoo and a whole new world unfolded! Now I don't want to ever be without my canned chicken breast, canned ham, all that good stuff. The pressure canner pays for itself very quickly :)

dede