Tigress’ canned tomatoes: sauced

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Ok, ok, you twisted my paw. this post is about my favorite way to can tomatoes. there, you got me! yes, i used to can only pristine paste tomatoes; san marzano, or amish paste were my chosen few. blemish free, uniform in size, dropped in a hot pot, skinned, jarred and boiled for 85 minutes. you probably know the drill.

but who among us hasn’t chased a few of those slippery-slide-y little buggers around the counter top, only to have them escape onto the kitchen floor the split second after you thought you’d won? who has squirted tomato guts in thine own eyes when pressing the last one into the jar? trying as you might to reach that perfect-lined headspace with terribly unwilling fruits.

and who (here’s the clincher) when putting your beautiful blood red jars on display the morning after has had to fiddle about in an effort to hide the worse offenders in the back.

Don’t pretend you don’t know what i’m talking about.

Fruit float!

There, i said it. and please, don’t get me started on siphoning. you know, it’s when you’ve absolutely made sure the headspace was exactly what it was supposed to be when the jars went into the canner, and…

Where did all that liquid go?

Yes, there’s ways to work toward eliminating all of the above mentioned mishaps. it can be done, and perhaps we’ll talk about it another day. but more importantly, when you’ve got fall breathing down your back, tons of every variety less-than-perfect tomatoes falling from your vines, neighboring farmers begging you to take them, all of them, apple, pear and herb pairings to attend to, pumpkins to pie, and let’s face it; you chop up all those damn tomatoes when you use ‘em any wayz…

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