Family Living
Focus
by
AUetta Schadler
Lebanon Co. Extension
Tomatoes
It's tomato time! Judging
from several recent phone calls
and my own observation of sup
plies, I'd say tomato harvest
time is here.
There are a number of ways
you can capture today's toma
toes for future reference.
You can freeze tomatoes sim
ply by cooking them alone or
with seasoning such as onions,
celery, peppers and herbs. I
always blanch the tomatoes and
remove the skins or cook the
tomatoes and them put them
through a food mill because I
find the skins to be unpleasant.
You can cook up a batch of sauce
or spaghetti sauce and freeze in
freezer weight zipper bags or
plastic boxes. In a pinch, you
could even freeze tomatoes with-
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out cooking them first, only to
thaw and cook them later in the
fall. I'd only recommend this if
you are going on vacation and
can't deal with the tomatoes now
or some similar scenario.
Tomatoes that are frozen
whole will become limp and
watery when thawed because
the cell wall of the tomatoes are
very tender and when the liquid
in the tomato freezes it forms
sharp-edged crystals that punc
ture the cell walls. When the
tomato thaws, the liquids leak
out.
You can also preserve tomato
products in jars by using a water
bath canner or pressure canner.
Tomatoes these days have less
acid than they used to and so to
prevent the possibility of dan
gerous food spoilage in the vacu-
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um of the sealed jar, it is recom
mended that you acidulate the
tomatoes with either citnc acid
or bottled lemon juice. For the
same reason, the recommended
length of processing time in the
canner has been lengthened
over what was common practice
years ago. If you are interested
in canning tomatoes products
you can get a set of recommen
dations and recipes from the
extension office.
A word about quality. If you
are buying tomatoes to can and
your source sells "canning toma r '
toes" be very fussy about the
condition of the tomatoes. Do
not can tomatoes that have deep
cracks or spoiled bruises. These
will introduce high levels of bac
teria which can cause spoilage.
If "canning quality" means
irregular shapes and sizes,
that's ok. Otherwise, sort them
very carefully and wash the
tomatoes with lots of running
clean water to remove spoilage
bacteria.
One bothersome feature of
making tomato juices and
sauces in the separation of the
pulp in the juice Tomatoes con
tain pectin that is destroyed
when the tomatoes are cut and
exposed to the air, as when you
are cutting them up ahead of
time. It is not a good idea to cut
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up a pot full of tomatoes and'
then bring to a boil. The better
way is to crush a few tomatoes
and bring them to a boil, then
cut quartered or sliced tomatoes
into the boiling juice. The toma
toes can then be mashed or put
through a good mill or separator.
This technique will make a huge
difference in your sauce or juice.
Tomatoes can be dehydrated
in slices or in halves using a food
dehydrator. Forget about sun
drying here in central
Pennsylvania! We have humidi
ty that is too high and insuffi
cient dependable sunshine to do
the job. If you live in Arizona it
would work, but not here.
If you are interested in dehy
drating food, I recommend that
you purchase a dehydrator that
has a thermostat and a fan to
move the air in the appliance
Folks who have tried drying wet
food like peaches or apricots or
tomatoes without a fan-driven
heat often the food gets moldy
before it dries A dehydrator will
work faster in your air condi
tioned house than in another
place that has humidity of 80
percent or higher. Italian Roma
type tomatoes will give better
results in the dehydrator
because they have significantly
more solids than regular slicing
tomatoes
Huge numbers of folks are
making salsa with their toma
Lancaster Farming, Saturday, August 29, 1998-B5
toes. They are making it to
freeze and can, to use them
selves and to give as gifts, and to
sell at bazaars. Because salsa
has lots of onion and peppers
added, the acidity of the mixture
is reduced. This means the
recipe must have sufficient
added vinegar or bottled lemon
juice if it is to be safely canned
It must be processed in a water
bath canner to be safe It is not
§a.fe to improvise a salsa recipe
what will be kept in a sealed jar
at room temperature (If you are
freezing the salsa or eating it
fresh, it is ok to improvise.) We
have a booklet with safe salsa
recipes you may can. Send a
SASE to me at 2120 Cornwall
Rd, Lebanon, PA 17042 for your
copy.
Finally, you can make tomato
preserves with yellow or red
tomatoes You can make it the
old-fashioned, long-boil method
or you can use commercial
pectin such as Certo or Sure Jell.
The recipes are not in the box
insert because they are not very
popular You can get odd recipes
by calling the company Last
week I called the 800 telephone
number on the Certo box to get a
recipe for tomato preserves.
They call it tomato relish I
wrote it down and have a copy I
would share with you Good
Luck with your tomato preser
vation efforts'