Tomatoes

It occurs to me that healthy living this week is going to revolve pretty much around tomatoes. There are six boxes of tomatoes in various shades of orange to red in front of the bookcase in the living room--the only place in the house big enough to hold them all. They haven't been weighed but I'm guessing 80-100 pounds total. If I were to can them *straight* there is about a pound of fruit per pint jar--which is a LOT of canned tomatoes!

I spent an hour and a half picking them this afternoon and they are beautiful. They got off to a slow start this season...I think I say that every year, but it seems we never get enough to start canning until into September. My sister-in-law and I garden together, and that's kind of nice because we take turns with the tomato picking. That means there's a bigger batch to deal with half as often, so it's kind of *worth it* to get everything out and process them. She took the last picking and the weather has been cool and rainy in between so they haven't come on fast. The last few days have been sunny though. There are zillions more green to yellow ones in the garden so we'll see how much longer the weather holds. Once we both have enough canned and night-time frosts hit, we'll pull the plants and likely give away the remainder of the tomatoes. Anything with color is likely to ripen after that point if they are completely blemish free.

With the roma tomatoes, the thing I like best is roasted tomato sauce. In my last picking there weren't a lot of ripe romas but I did make up a canner load (my canner holds seven jars). The flavors are so dense and rich with the roasting that it is my new favorite thing to do. It's also nice because you don't have to peel them; once they're roasted you just whiz them in the blender, peels and all. It makes a decent pasta sauce or pizza sauce as well as a good soup base. Guess I should post that one, come to think of it!

I've also dehydrated two batches of roma tomatoes. We call them sun-dried tomatoes even though they aren't. I got about an ice cream bucket full of pieces which I enjoy using several different ways. Terrific on pizza, in foccacia bread, in scrambled eggs to give some examples.

A couple weeks ago I canned tomato chunks in pint jars. I want to do another canner load or two in quarts as well, later this week when more of the tomatoes are ripe. At the moment, I have two slow cookers (I borrowed my mother-in-law's as well) of pasta sauce on. When I get home from work tomorrow they will be nice and ready to put in jars and process. I like them to simmer down to about half of what went in.

I'm eyeing those boxes and I'm not sure my ideas are grand enough yet compared to how many tomatoes I've got! Maybe I'll make a big batch of salsa to can as well.

I know, I know. I should also make a bit pot of soup. I've posted the Hearty Tomato Soup over at the forum, and Jean has adapted that over to a vegetarian soup. It would be perfect for canning for the winter.

My in-laws have an over-abundance of beets in their garden and invited me over last night for Curried Beet Soup. Unfortunately it contains foods that are fairly high on the glycemic index (beets and potatoes both) so I won't be posting it over to the forum unless I get a brain-wave on adaptations for it. But because I'm so close to my target weight, I could can some of that too. I'm to the point where I could have something like that sometimes. It's a vegetarian soup--if anyone wants the recipe, holler.