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Putting up Summer

September 20th, 2014

Yesterday I spent the day getting my roasted tomato passata put up in the jars for this coming winter. I use the recipe from The River Cottage Preserves Handbook, which I discovered a few years ago. I like this book because it has recipes that are different than many preserving books, including things for slo gin and other interesting ways of putting up fruits and vegetables.
In My Library Cookbooks 3
Over the past couple weeks I’ve been slow roasting my tomatoes in the oven with shallots, garlic, and herbs. When I finish a double batch, which is the amount that fills up my oven, I have been putting them in the freezer to have a marathon canning day. I ended up making 6 batches of sauce and it took me all night to get them sealed into jars.
passata
One of the things I like about this method is that it smells heavenly, unlike the smell up canning plain tomatoes, which isn’t my favorite. I also like the finished product, it works well for pizza sauce, pasta sauce or it makes a perfect soup if mixed with some chicken stock. If I only had one way to put up tomatoes this would be it, though my tomato soup comes in a close second!

What’s your favorite tomato recipe?

8 Comments to “Putting up Summer”
  1. kristin @ going country on September 20, 2014 at 5:56 am

    My favorite came years ago from my online friend Finny at finnyknits.blogspot.com. Sliced tomatoes drizzled with olive oil, salt and pepper, and a foil-wrapped whole head of garlic are roasted at high heat until soft and slightly charred. Then you dump all the tomatoes into a blender or food processor, squeeze the roasted garlic in there (strangely fun :-) and add lots of basil, more salt, and red wine. Quite a bit of wine. Process until smooth. The actual recipe with measurements is here

    http://finnyknits.blogspot.com/2007/08/best-tomato-sauce-ever-yep.html

    But I don’t bother measuring anything anymore, and it’s always so good I eat some of it with a spoon while taking it out of the food processor. I also add more basil than she does, because I like it.

    Reply to kristin @ going country's comment

  2. Myra S. on September 20, 2014 at 9:13 am

    This is my first year slow roasting tomatoes and I’m glad mine look like yours as I wasn’t sure how they were supposed to look when they were finished. I froze mine in small amounts and will probably leave them that way as I’m the only one who’ll be eating them. I look forward to putting them on pizza mostly, or added to a stir fry. I saw a recipe that said to hurry up the roasting process you could have the oven at 400 and roast for 20 minutes. I tried that with one batch and didn’t like the results. Slow is definitely the way to go with these gems.

    Reply to Myra S.'s comment

  3. Jennie on September 20, 2014 at 4:11 pm

    This year we are in the process of moving- but last year I made a ton of roasted corn salsa…that smelled awesome too. It was a lot of work but the bright colors in a dreary, snowy February in Minnesota was worth the investment! I have thought about putting up a Bloody Mary mix…

    Reply to Jennie's comment

  4. Ken Toney on September 20, 2014 at 10:25 pm

    I have spent several nights in the past few weeks slow roasting tomatoes with onions, garlic and peppers, running through a food mill, and cooking down for tomato sauce. It is my favorite way of making tomato sauce and I have canned 42 quarts already. Our next favorite recipe for tomatoes if your tomato soup recipe. Been using it for several years now and my family loves it. We have 24 quarts so far. Picking more tomatoes tomorrow and my 5 year old asked if we could make more tomato soup.

    Reply to Ken Toney's comment

  5. Nebraska Dave on September 21, 2014 at 8:50 am

    Susy, I’m not sure at what temperature slow roasting happens or how long it takes but it looks quite interesting. And yes, your recipe for tomato soup still resides taped to the cabinet door for future use. It is awesome. I’m glad that I put up enough last year to last me into the winter months this year. I really should have bought some farmer market tomatoes to make more this year but too many things distracted me. My storage area this year is almost entirely store sale items. With all the heath issues behind me and being hopeful for better weather next year, more storage will happen next year. I’m hopeful that I can reach the two year storage cycle next year with more items. This year was a bit of a set back but I’m already planning next year.

    Have a great putting up Summer day.

    Reply to Nebraska Dave's comment

  6. Jess Clark on September 22, 2014 at 11:21 am

    I’ve made the sloe gin from the River Cottage book (only I used local beach plums rather than sloe plums, so … beach gin?) It was fantastic. At I kept tasting it during the 8-10 week wait, and was disappointed, but then one day I tasted it and it was amazing. It definitely needs the steeping time. So yummy. :-)

    Reply to Jess Clark's comment

  7. Lea on September 22, 2014 at 6:41 pm

    Susy, what is your recipe for the sauce? I see the recipe for tomato soup, but is there anything else besides the garlic, shallots and herbs (what herbs and how much?) that goes into your sauce? This sounds so wonderful that I would love to give it a try.

    Reply to Lea's comment

    • Susy on September 22, 2014 at 7:10 pm

      I will add it as a post on Wed so everyone can see it.

      Reply to Susy's comment

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This is a daily journal of my efforts to cultivate a more simple life, through local eating, gardening and so many other things. We used to live in a small suburban neighborhood Ohio but moved to 153 acres in Liberty, Maine in 2012.

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