How To: Canning Diced Tomatoes

We’ve had a plethora of tomatoes in our garden this year, so many in fact, that I decided I wanted to can them. We still had several cans of tomato sauce in our pantry from the last time I canned so I decided that was out of the question. I thought about what type of tomato products I use most during the winter and settled on diced tomatoes. I tend to use these in Chili and other hearty recipes throughout the winter so in order to save a little bit of money l decided this was what needed to be canned.The first step to canning fresh tomatoes, no matter how you will be doing it, is to blanch and skin all the tomatoes. To do this you need to make an X at the bottom of the tomato, then blanch it. You will need to blanch it for about 60 seconds. After this immediately plunge it into ice cold water and the skins should just fall away. If you would like to read more in depth on the blanching process check out my previous post on How To: Blanching Veggies. You will also need to begin prepping the canning jars and lids. Because of the acidity in tomatoes you can water bath can them. If you are new to the canning process read my post on How To: Water Bath Canning.I chose to use the Hot Pack method of canning. This requires a pot of boiling water on the stove while you’re dicing. After you’re done dicing the tomatoes you are ready to pack the hot jars. Remove the jars from the boiling pot. Put in ¼ Teaspoon of Citric Acid in the bottom. Fill the jars with the diced tomatoes leaving a ½ inch headspace. Then cover the tomatoes with the boiling water. Place the lid on the jar and tighten the band to fingertip tight, then tighten again.Place the prepared jars in the water bath canner. Process them for 45 minutes with the lid on. Then remove the lid and process them for another 5 minutes. Remove from the boiling liquid and place on the counter in a spot where they won’t have to be moved for 24 hours. Let them sit and cool. If you find that any jars did not seal you can actually process them again if you catch it within 24 hours. Otherwise put the unsealed jars in the fridge and use within a week. The sealed jars you can put in the pantry for storage.

How To: Freezing Sweet Corn

 To be completely honest freezing sweet corn is a HUGE hassle. However, when it’s the dead of winter and I pull a new bag of fresh sweet corn out of the freezer I absolutely praise summer Stacie for all the work she put in over the summer. This summer we actually planted some sweet corn in our garden. BUT- the stupid deer that come into town actually ate everything we planted! It was so very sad until I went to Aldi while they were having a .05/ear sale. I purchased 30 ears of sweet corn and decided to go ahead and put most of them in the freezer for later.In order to freeze sweet corn you will first need to blanch the ears of corn. You can refer to my previous post on How To: Blanching Veggies and follow the steps. For sweet corn you will need to blanch it for 4 minutes. Make sure to let it cool long enough since you will be handling it pretty heavily.After the ears are cool place the ears onto a baking sheet. You want to cut the kernels ⅔’rds of the way down to the cob. This keeps you from getting any of the cob in the finished product. I typically do the ears after they cool while I’m blanching the next batch of ears. Once I get in a rhythm I can typically get through one batch before the next one is ready. After all the ears have been blanched and cut it is time to portion the kernels into individual packets. I’ve done it several different ways, but I’ve found that I prefer to portion the finished corn into quart freezer packets. I typically put about 2-3 cups of corn into the baggies. This keeps the corn from going in and out of the freezer too much since you will use it quicker.Once everything is in freezer safe baggies simply pop it in the freezer! Make sure to leave it for 24 hours so it can completely freeze. I suggest putting it in a deep freezer and moving it to your regular freezer as you use it. This ensures you will get the freshest product possible throughout the year as needed.

How To: Blanching Vegetables

Over the last few years I’ve come to realize how much I absolutely love preserving food that we’ve grown at home or that family members have grown. It gives me such a feeling of accomplishment whenever I go to the freezer or pantry to get something I’ve canned or frozen. This whole week I’m going to be talking about food preservation and how easy it is to do at home. The primary methods I use are water bath canning and freezing although someday I would absolutely love to get a pressure canner and begin to use that. It affords you so many additional foods that can be preserved since it is the only recommended way for low-acid foods. If you’re interested I’ve already posted a whole post on How To: Water Bath Canning, so if you’re interested go back and check it out!Today, however, I’m going to be talking about blanching veggies. This is a necessary first step to preserving a lot of home grown food. When you blanch veggies you preserve the fresh flavor while killing any of the bacteria that might be on them. This method is a must for many of the veggies I’ll be showing you how to preserve this week. For simplicities sake the photos that are accompanying this post is the photos of me blanching corn. I’ll be sharing more in depth later this week on how exactly to prepare it for the freezer. But for today you just get the photos from me blanching it!In order to blanch veggies you need to bring a large pot of water to a boil. It should be a rolling boil and once you put anything in it, it should return to a high boil within a minute. This is key since you need to kill any bacteria on the veggies. Boil the veggies for whatever the recommended time is for the specific veggie you’re working with. For corn the recommended time is 4 minutes, for tomatoes, 60 seconds.After boiling you place the veggies into a large bowl of ice water. They should sit in the water just as long as you had them in the hot water for. After they cool, drain the excess liquid since this can affect the finished product. After this you’re done and can progress to preserving whatever food you’re working with!One disclaimer, I am by no means an expert in this field. I am simply sharing the methods and lengths of time my research has shown me. If you are very interested in preserving your own food I highly suggest doing your own research and figuring out what you feel comfortable with. An excellent resource is the National Center for Home Food Preservation. I have found this to be a highly valuable resource maintained by experts in the field of home food preservation. I also suggest Ball’s book: The Complete Book of Home Preserving. However, since the recommendations can change I always suggest checking the NCHFP site before you try preserving any new recipes. You can never be too safe when it comes to preserving food!