Enjoying all my Hard Work
When I read this quote in a Better Homes and Gardens magazine a while back I loved it. It’s so true that home canned tomatoes are like opening up a jar of summer. Yesterday I cracked open 6 pints of tomato sauce and diced tomatoes to make some sauce. All these wonderful tomatoey meals in the winter make all the hard work growing and canning tomatoes worth it!
I think if I could only preserve one thing from the garden to eat in the winter I’d choose tomatoes.
What would you choose?
Filed under Canning, Harvest Keepers Challenge | Comments (26)
Oh yes!! This is so true. I was eating some salsa and some ketchup I had canned this summer, and it just brought back all of these memories of picking the tomatoes and other veg, preparing them and canning them – even remembering the exact day with the sunlight, the temperature, the feel of the kitchen floor… like being transported and seeing all that work come back in a satisfying way.
If I could have only one summer item… that’s hard. I think tomato for the “veg” and likely peaches for the “fruit”. Both for me are the height of summer. Many of my other favorites have a longer growing season, extending into the cooler days of fall or the early spring. But these are at their peak in the hottest days, and I love them.
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if i could only preserve one thing? that is so hard! i think mine changes from year to year because i fall in love with something new, or i deeply miss what i wasn’t able to preserve that year. tomatoes are high on my list this year since we didn’t see any due to blight. :(
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My 14 month old loves green beans, so I would say that they are my favorite. He’ll eat almost every vegetable, but they are by far his favorite. Last summer, he would go to the garden with me and eat fresh beans while I picked a half bushel for canning that night. This year I am planning on 3 rows for us and a row for him.
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Oh tomatoes are definitely “the one” if I had to choose. Unfortunately, I moved from hot dry sunny central Washington state to wet cool cloudy maritime coastal Washington state about five years ago. Since then I have had to relearn how to grow tomatoes and have never had the bounty of them that I did at my previous homestead. I have to pull out all the stops, make no mistakes, and have luck on my side to get a good tomato harvest at this homestead. Possible but the odds are stacked up against me each and every year. I got a passable harvest this past year before blight took all of the patch down for the season.
I have been steadily using my jars of preserved items (including tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, and salsa), dry storage, and my freezer items to supplement our fresh winter harvest crops. By far the most satisfying to open and smell are the pears, peaches, and tomatoes.
to kitsapFG's comment
I know what you mean, I have hardly any full-sun area so my tomatoes don’t produce as much as they would if I had a nice sunny garden plot. I loved dried tomatoes as well!
to Susy's comment
Tomatoes.
to Jane's comment
TOMATOES!!
They are my favorite food ever. BUT, I’m a tomato snob and won’t have anything to do with store bought or restaurant tomatoes. They’ve gotta be home grown!
to Rhonda's comment
They’re so much better for sure! I love Principe Borghese for drying, super delicious!
to Susy's comment
Blueberries. I buy tons in the summer, and freeze the ones that aren’t eaten on the way home. I love blueberries for smoothies, pancakes, muffins, warmed with milk and oats…..
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I haven’t learned how to can. It is on my to do list and hopefully, this summer I’ll get enough from the garden to do so.
Tomatoes are my favorite summer veggie. I’ve never had them home canned, well, that I remember…. I probably had them at my grandma’s as a kid. As for canned foods? I LOVE home canned green beans better than fresh ones. Really. Or at least I loved my grandma’s better than anything.
Growing up we’d visit grandma for two weeks each summer. She always canned extra green beans just for us to take home. I remember how we would ration those beans. I remember getting mad if mom cooked any for company, even knowing that she would only do so if it was extra special company.
Dad has always had a garden and mom freezes some things, but she never has canned. I just realized that I have never ask her why not. We will be celebrating her 70th birthday next month.
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to Seren Dippity's comment
Well, tomatoes are great first place to start canning!
to Susy's comment
I would have to say tomatoes since salsa, sauce, whole tomatoes, and juice all figure in so many meals.
But really, raspberries are my favorite to eat in the winter!
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I completely concur! It’s all about the tomatoes. They factor into so many meals we eat in winter. :) Melissa
.-= Melissa´s last blog ..In the Kitchen: Frugal Tips =-.
to Melissa's comment
Tomatoes are certainly the most coveted in our house. In lean years (like this one), they can only go in certain dishes and all other things get the inferior store bought tomatoes. I keep hoping for an over abundant tomato year, so that I can have a back up. So far that hasn’t happened.
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So true, the more I can the more we eat! I definitely need to can more diced tomatoes, I always run out. I think this year I finally have enough tomato soup in the pantry.
to Susy's comment
I agree! This morning I opened up a jar of whole ones I had canned this last summer. It is for our dinner tonight of Chicken Paprikash. Our own tomatoes and our own chicken! I am looking forward to coming home to it.
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to Rachel's comment
It’s got to be tomatoes. Last night I made a wonderful spaghetti squash casserole with homemade tomato sauce. My husband was very impressed with how much better the home canned sauce tasted vs. store bought sauce.
I also love to dehydrate little cherry tomatoes. They become so sweet and they’re easy to add to just about anything. Actually, I have to hide them from my 3 year old because he loves them. He calls them, “tomato candy.”
to Andrea's comment
Definitely, definitely tomatoes. I am only a few jars away from running out and I am kicking myself that I did not can more last fall. Won’t be making that mistake again.
to melissa's comment
That’s a hard one. I’m salivating over all the garden will produce this year already, given what we had last year. Tomatoes, however, we had none last year. The blight hit us *hard*. I’ve never canned *myself* so this year will be a big learning curve with tomatoes at the top. I think, however, I most miss homemade pickles. My German grandparents made the best and I’m hoping I can come moderately close this year.
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I have an old farmhouse cookbook given to me by my mil. I made some of the 14-day sweet pickles and they’re the best I’ve ever had (and I’ve never liked sweet pickles). I can’t wait to try some of the dill and other fermented pickles.
I think you’ll find that canning tomatoes is super easy!
to Susy's comment
Mmmmm, frozen blueberries.
I must open tomatoes and make sauce today.
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to stefaneener's comment
I ordered the pressure canner and can’t wait to use it!!!!!!!
Definitely my favorite summer saved item is tomatoes – the rest is so much better fresh that it just wouldn’t be the same (eggplant, beans, peppers) though i look forward to trying all sorts of crazy preservation measures on whatever i get to grow this summer.
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to Miranda's comment
Ditto on the tomatoes!
.-= Pampered Mom´s last blog ..Making a Record =-.
to Pampered Mom's comment
Definitely Tomatoes! I think that this summer I’ll try to grow “too many” because there are never enough. Last season’s harvest was dreadfully small; lots of blossoms but only 4 “set.”
Wonderful photographs.
.-= Conny´s last blog ..Corner View: my favorite hangout =-.
to Conny's comment
TOMATOES
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For my family it would have to be apples made into sauce…but for me personally it is like you tomatoes all the way! Kim
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