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Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Easier Method to Cooking Down Tomatoes...

I have been a canning and freezing fool! I have gotten a ton done this summer and I have been blessed as you read yesterday. There are a few things that are not my favorite to do when it comes to harvesting and preserving food, here they are in order of my dislike:
3. Getting silks off of corn so that you can cut it off the cob. They just keep appearing!
2. Dicing and seeding tomatoes for sauces and salsa.

And the number one thing I dislike is:

1. cooking down tomatoes for sauces and salsa. It's hot, it's time consuming, and I really, really dislike sitting there stirring.

But alas, I found a way to get around my number one dislike! Here are the steps in preparing them for whatever you are going to make with the tomatoes.
  1. Clean the tomatoes thoroughly and let dry.
  2. Drop tomatoes in a rapidly boiling pot for 30 seconds and then take them out and put them in a boil of ice water (called blanching.)
  3. Skin them (when blanching the skins should just fall right off.), core them and cut out all bad spots.
  4. Seed them! That yucky number two dislike!
  5. And finally put them on a slow cooker over night on low. Then the next morning take the lid off the slow cooker for about 45 minutes and your tomatoes are beautifully cooked down. No standing in front of a hot stove and stirring... Just sleep! walah!
This is a quick shortcut that works for me. For more Works for Me Wednesday head on over to We Are That Family.

2 comments:

Kirstyn said...

If you ever have a chance to invest in a Vitamix, this will make your tomato job SO much easier-- I've always hated peeling and seeding tomatoes, too, but my Vitamix is fabulous-- you just drop the entire tomato in (maybe cut out that little top core) and it blends everything up, even the seeds! The best part is- there's tons of nutrients in the skins.

Anonymous said...

I was just thinking this morning as I was watering the garden that there has to be some better way to cook down tomatoes for canning. Thanks for confirming that a crockpot will work just fine. Thanks and may God bless you!