Since we have been procrastinating doing anything with the tomatoes in our freezer, we took advantage of PRIME day and ordered a Weston Tomato Strainer. This is our first year using one and it really made processing a snap! Last year we removed the skins manually and it was a pain in the you know what. This year we roasted the tomatoes which removed most of the excess water. This method is highly recommended if you don’t want to spend hours heating the sauce to reduce it down. We let them cool for a bit, then tossed them in the hopper and away they went. The skins/seeds pushed out one tube and the pulp/juice out the other.
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As you can see from the photos, we did not grow anywhere near as many tomatoes as last year. In fact after all that work (and a trip to Farmer Joes) we only had enough to fill one 16 oz jar! To be fair it is really hot in FL so the only thing that grows in the spring/summer is small cherry tomatoes. We will be planting a much larger crop at both locations this fall with hopes to grow larger paste tomatoes.
Our Process:
As we harvest the tomatoes from the vines, we remove the stems, wash, dry and store them in a freezer container until we have enough to process.
Last year we ran the frozen tomatoes under really hot water and the cherry skins came off effortlessly, the Romas not so much! This year since we ordered the tomato strainer, we skipped this step (the machine does all the work).
We preheated the oven to 400 degrees and placed the tomatoes on a baking sheet. Placed the sheet in the oven for 20 min and took the tomatoes out to cool.
While we they were cooling, we chopped up some onion, pepper and peeled some garlic cloves. We placed them on a separate sheet and drizzled with olive oil. Cooked that in the oven for another 20 min while we ran the tomatoes through the food strainer.
We did a little reducing down because we had to heat the tomato puree to add in the roasted peppers, onion and garlic paste. While that was simmering on low we heated up a few jars (but only ended up needing one…lol) and got the canner ready to go.
When canning tomato sauce you need to add 2 tbs of lemon juice per quart and 1 tbs per pint. It is best to add this to the jar first so you don’t forget. We pressure can everything with our Nesco Pressure Canner and processed the sauce at 20 min since it was a pint jar. Hopefully next season we will need more jars 😝.
The Blue Riverhaus 