Hey, I'm Trace Barnett and welcome to Garden Party.

Today we are going to be canning up tomatoes, which in Alabama is like liquid gold or liquid red gold actually.

So today I'm going to show you a traditional method for putting up tomatoes to use later on in the season.

Canning tomatoes is relatively easy.

Just a little bit of hot water and some jars and you are ready to go.

So let's get started.

The first thing that you are going to need when you're canning tomatoes is, of course, the jars.

And you want your jars to be extremely, extremely hot.

That's the key.

One, It's going to kill all of the germs and bacteria that is inside this jar.

And two, it's going to help seal the jar.

Once we are ready to put our tomatoes in there.

So always keep in mind hot liquid into hot jars with hot tips and rings.

So I have a large stockpot here.

And I'm going to submerge my jar down into that stockpot.

I'm also going to put my tips and rings directly into that water.

So I'm going to transfer our pot with our jars over to the stove.

So while our jars are heating up and sterilizing now let's move on to the second most important thing, or maybe the most.

I guess it just depends on how you look at life, or tomatoes or canning in general.

And that's the tomatoes.

So use tomatoes that are all at their peak of rottenness and, you know, their peak when you can kind of give them a little smush and they kind of smush back, if you know what I mean.

So take all of your tomatoes and you want to submerge those in a large dish pan.

And what I've done is I've kind of just taken these tomatoes.

I move them around in the water just like that.

I've drained this water a couple times already just to get any kind of floating leaves or debris that might be attached to them.

Again, we hit on this and our other freezing video, but now a good opportunity to use those tomatoes that might not be just the most beautiful things on earth.

Save your slicing tomatoes for other recipes.

A good tip on choosing tomatoes to can would be I love to use Roma tomatoes and San Marzano tomatoes.

I know I probably didn't say that right, but it still sounds fancy.

I love to use them because they have a really good color that imparts itself into our canned tomatoes.

Plus, they just have a really good consistency that thickens as they cook.

So to begin, let's simply take our tomatoes that have been cleaned and I'm going to remove the ends.

Again I'm going to remove any imperfections that might be on that.

And we're not looking for prettiness here.

So we're just going to literally roll through these, remove the ends and remove any blemishes or bruising.

And it's a good idea to go ahead and have all of your tomatoes washed and everything on hand ready to go.

That's one thing when you're canning, you don't want to be chasing your tail all over the kitchen, trying to reach all of your needed essentials or your ingredients.

The great thing about canning tomatoes is that you can make them your own.

So, for instance, you can season these up and make them a pasta sauce, a salsa, chili tomatoes, any kind of tomato that you're using.

I would suggest you just decide what you use the most of.

And that's what I would do.

I do a variety of tomatoes through the season because I'm a real heavy tomato based person, especially as fall and winter comes with soups and such.

Now, if you do not have a food processor on hand, you can definitely just use a blender or you can cook them down in a pot.

And we'll talk about that briefly.

But if you do have a food processor that is going to really quicken the process of canning.

So I'm just going to load these tomatoes up in there.

Fill your food processor up or your blender.

And what I'm going to do is I'm just going to crush this just until they are completely macerated.

And I know there's a lot of mawmaws out there or folks who can in general that are like, oh, you left the skins on and I prefer to leave the skins on my tomatoes.

And the reason I really prefer that is because the skins really hold a lot of the nutrients.

They also hold a lot of the color.

Also, a little fun tip if you leave the skins on your tomatoes, they will help thicken whatever you put them in and it helps a really thicken pasta sauces and stuff like that too.

So whatever you are canning.

So if you're doing a pasta sauce, if you're doing soup, tomatoes, chili tomatoes, whatever that may be.

Now is the great time to add in any other extra flavors that you want to impart onto your tomato sauce.

I'm going to throw in some fresh bell pepper.

Few cloves of fresh garlic.

I'm just going to throw in some salt and pepper.

You can also add garlic powder, garlic salt fresh basil.

Let's go ahead and Add some fresh basil on there too because I mean who doesn't just love fresh basil.

And the food processor really helps.

in marrying this all together.

It also makes it into really good bite size portions that are perfect for sauces and soups.

I'm going to throw an onion in there.

Of course, your cutting method here doesn't have to be perfect.

Just rough chop everything and just throw it in that blender.

Always just love a recipe where I can just throw it all in there and not worry about it.

And again, I'm going to return the lid to my food processor, and I'm going to go ahead and macerate all of that on crushed together.

Really am loving using that word macerate I think it's under used Make sure everything is just kinda to the same consistency.

And like I'm looking down into my tomatoes here and I can see that there's still some big chunks of basil, big chunks of onion.

So I'm going to go ahead and do that again.

Now optionally, and I just had this conversation with a friend who was canning tomatoes for the first time, and she went through the process of roasting everything in the oven together and then macerated it.

If you're doing that and small batch, that works great, but large batch canning and actually just canning tomatoes in general.

Throw all of it in here together.

It's all going to be cooked down in the same pot anyway, so there's no need for that extra step.

So I'm going to take our blade out here.

Now if I was working through just tons of tomatoes, I would do this multiple, multiple times.

But we're only working on a few jars here today because we're not trying to get stressed out.

So take this and pour your tomatoes into a large stockpot.

And I'm just going to pour that directly in there.

So I'm going to take our tomatoes here.

And I'm going to place those on our stovetop.

And I'm going to bring those again to a rolling boil.

And then I'm going to reduce the heat on that.

And I'm just going to simmer all of these ingredients together.

Now I'm going to simmer them just until they reduce.

There's going to be a little bit of foam that is created on top of the tomatoes.

Simply just take a spoon, skim that off.

You're going to know that your tomatoes are ready.

They're going to turn this really bright color for one and two every all the components that we just crushed are going to marry together.

They're going to thicken up and they're going to resemble those soup tomatoes, the pasta sauces that you're used to popping off of a store shelf and pouring in a pot.

So let's put this on our stovetop and cook it down.

All right, so now that we have cooked our tomatoes down to the perfect consistency, and I'm going to bring this up so you can kind of see.

So all of those tomatoes will kind of have this color to them.

You'll be able to know when everything is cooked down and is perfect.

So one of the best ways to know if your tomato sauce is ready to be canned up is to taste it.

And I would suggest you use just like a wooden utensil to taste it, because sometimes metal utensils can impart a little bit of flavor.

Of course.

Blow on it.

Good.

You don't want to burn your tongue off while you're trying to lose a tongue, but gain some tomatoes.

And so that's perfect.

It's got every bit of the basil flavor, the smokiness of the tomatoes, the garlic flavor.

It's just what I would want to put on any kind of pasta and any kind of lasagna.

Anything that needs a good red sauce.

It's ready to go in a can.

So my favorite go to recipe, and this is also the recipe I take to friends' houses.

I'll take my canned tomatoes, you know, already seasoned with basil, already seasoned with everything you need for a tomato basil soup.

I'll simply just take that.

Put that in a blender.

Or directly into the pot depending on what level of puree-ness that you want with your tomato basil soup.

And I'll simply add some more basil, add some heavy cream, heat it up and do it with like a gruyere grilled cheese.

And that's just like heaven on earth.

It's like a little bit of summer in the dead of winter with the fresh basil, the fresh tomatoes, and it's just so easy.

And another thing that's crazy too, about like, the canned tomatoes.

Especially if you're doing like a tomato basil.

It's like people who normally get heartburn from canned tomatoes like these home canned tomatoes you do not have heartburn from.

So tomato basil soup without the burn.

So now that our tomatoes have passed the taste test those tasty maters, let's go ahead and get our scalding hot jar out.

Now, if you are canning for the first time, this is when I'm going to tell you to watch all of your digits.

If you have a good mawmaw hand on hand, go ahead and use that mawmaw hand because, you know, they can just my grandmother could dip her hand in this boiling water and pull this jar out.

I still don't know how she could do it, but she could.

Set your jar out Place your funnel on your jar.

If you don't have a funnel, go out and buy one because it's really going to make life easier.

And you don't want a dirty jar.

So and I'm not going to try to rush you here, but, you know, don't take your time to the point where your jar gets cold.

I'll remove my jars one at a time, fill them one at a time, and go on that slow process.

Just enjoy the moment.

You can get a little bit of a steam and facial, a little bit of a tomato, just nothing better.

So I'm going to use just a measuring cup here.

And if you don't have a measuring cup, use a coffee cup.

And I'm just going to start ladling this in our jar.

Fill your jar up Just under the rim.

You don't ever want to fill your jar up all the way to the top.

And the reason that you do not is because that will hinder the sealing of your jar.

I'm also going to take a rag here.

Always use your hot pads, your rags and wipe your jar.

Clean it up really well.

And the reason I say that is because, for instance, this jar that I had canned, and just opened a bit ago, it did not seal right.

And I knew that it didn't, because when I opened it, it kind of made a strange noise.

But do you see how this jar has a little bit of coloring around it?

So this jar lid was dirty and I didn't clean it as well as I should, so it stopped the jar from sealing.

So definitely clean your jar.

That's the whole key of canning is just keeping things as clean as possible.

Use your tongs, fish out your jar tips and rings.

I'm going to lay my ring to the side there.

And a great tip when you're dealing with the jar tips, is to make sure that they are not two that are stuck together.

I cannot tell you how many times that happened to me when I was first canning, but they can kind of secretly seal together, and then that's going to keep your jar from sealing too, make sure there's only one there.

And then I'm going to tighten that ring up just as tight as I can.

So tighten that jar really well.

And this is the magic that's going to make it all happen.

Take your hot jar with the hot contents and you're going to flip that upside down.

You're going to leave this turned upside down for a good 15 to 20 minutes, just until that jar starts to cool slightly.

And then what you're going to do is just flip it back over that little moment of kind of cooling down and then flipping it will act like a vacuum seal, and it's going to cause that jar lid to just....

Trying to make a good popping noise.

That's better.

That's what you want to hear.

And that's music to any canner's ears.

When you start hearing your jars pop on the counter.

Now, if you have jars that do not want to seal, which is going to be few and far between when you're working with tomatoes because once again, it's hot liquid going into hot jar.

If you do have lids that do not seal, simply take your tomatoes, pop them back into a large stockpot, cover them with just about half inch of water above, the jar lid there and just cook those for an additional 30 minutes.

Take them out and flip them again.

So now that your jars have sealed and cooled sufficiently store them out of direct sunlight and in a place that doesn't have a lot of temperature variation, these should keep for you well over a year.

But I can guarantee they're not going to last that long.

These are going to go great in sauces and soups also in Christmas stockings.

This is like liquid gold in Christmas season for me.

So whether you decide to freeze or can whatever vegetable you choose, it's all about extending the soul of your garden and feeding your family and friends throughout the year.

So happy eating, canning or freezing or whatever you're doing in your garden right now.

My name is Trace I was getting instructions to smile, and that's that.

Lost that thought, what the first one was good.

And then canning tomatoes is absolutely the easiest thing to kind of dip your toes in the canning water, for lack of a better pun Boom.

If there are any tomatoes, like, for instance, this tomato and this tomato, there's a little bit of color difference.

264 00:14:06,762 --> 00:14:09,431 Differentiation there.

That's really hard to say.

Color differentiate differentiation.

Throw this one away.

Just do a couple more that would try to run away.

Don't want to go in the food processor I wouldn't either.

So I'm going to look for my tongs here.

That's where the magic is going to happen.

Hopefully we'll see.