Dear Friends, I've been happily preserving the fruits of my gardening labor, but in the last day or two, it has taken a hellacious turn. I was on Day 3 of making tomato juice. I couldn't imagine eating that much chili in my lifetime, but it was the simplest thing to think of making at the time. At my last trip to the garden, I also picked a few jalapenos, so with the last of the tomatoes I had on hand, I threw together some salsa to can.
Long story short, one jar exploded out of its spot and landed, broken, on top of the other jars in the canner, just as you see here. It could have been so much worse, but a few spatters did land on my arm and there are couple of tiny blisters which I am not enjoying this morning.
The canner is really gross now and I need to get it cleaned out because....
...there will be more tomatoes to pick next week.
We're up to our eyeballs in tomatoes. We can tomato juice, tomato sauce, salsa and freeze plain tomatoes to throw in soups later. Do you have other suggestions of what to do with tomatoes?
ReplyDeleteYes, Jon. I just made a new post of a great spaghetti sauce. Add that to your repertoire. Do you make a straight tomato juice or do you make more of a V-8 juice? I've been making mine with onion, celery and cucumber. I add sugar and salt to taste.
ReplyDeleteoh my dear. That is THE WORST. Were the other jars salvaged?
ReplyDeleteAfter I had a jar of peaches do that, I learned to treat my jars more gently and stop using a knife to bubble them. Now I use a chopstick, when I remember :) The metal clanging on the jar can weaken it and then, under pressure in the canner, POOF. Mess. sighhhhhh
oh, another tomato suggestion: making ketchup. It takes a ton of tomatoes to cook down to the thickness required.
ReplyDeleteMargo, the other jars did survive the explosion. Have you always made your own ketchup or just AR (After Rebecca)? I should try it. I never have and I wonder what my family would think of it.
ReplyDelete