Over the past few weeks I've been sort of complaining about the "piddling" amount of tomatoes trickling in each day. We were getting about 10lbs a day , which is something.... I suppose... but not enough to do any serious canning ... I mean... they cook down to nothing. 10lbs would probably give you one jar of sauce... maybe . Anyway, over the past few days ... things picked up. Elly May started bringing in 18lbs at a time... then she skipped a day.... and between the two of us... we gathered 60lbs yesterday from our little garden. We're getting some weird tomatoes...
I think this one is a Pineapple... it is kind of hard to tell because it looks so much like a Hillbilly ...but Elly May said she picked it down where the Pineapples are so I guess it must be that..
THIS ... is a Hillbilly. Over a pound and a half. Not bad. These have got to be some of the most beautiful tomatoes... they look like rainbows.
See? No longer piddling.... This is pretty hefty. So now of course... me and my big mouth... we have to do something with it all and fast because they are ripe .
And oh so pretty....
Until I get a hold of them.... You see... I hate peeling tomatoes. It is a messy, tedious chore. You have to scald them in boiling water until the skins split , then dump them into ice water to cool them off then slip the skins off. Of course they've had to stay in the boiling water for over a minute (at least it always seems that way) so they are pretty mushy and cooked. And we had 60lbs of these suckers to do and I was not looking forward to that part of the game. But then last night I had a brilliant idea. Back a couple weeks ago when we had a brown widow spider hiding out on top of one of my tomatoes... we torched it like we usually do those things. Since it was on the tomato ... the tomato got kind of torched too ... and the skin just shriveled up.... What if I just laid all the tomatoes out on a tray and hit them with the blow torch? Then we'd have flame roasted tomatoes. So... early this morning I got my brother to get the torch for me and Elly May and I got all our beauties ready and went to work . I've never had so much fun peeling tomatoes. Mom made us move our
operation outside as she said it smelled like pot burning.... hmmm.... I didn't notice anything but she said it was strong... Anyway... so we moved outside.
The only thing I would change..... if I had a flame thrower.... it would speed things up a bit.....Maybe next year.
After we hit them on both sides with the flame, the skins just slip off in our hands and we rinse the whole thing off. Elly May then diced them up and we put them on to heat so we could can them.
We had a lot going here...
The days work.... 23 quarts... not bad. Some of it ended up being just tomato juice as I didn't want to waste anything... but we got a decent amount overall.
Phew!!! That was exhausting. But very fun. I shall look forward to peeling tomatoes from now on. Fire makes everything better. ;-) So if you have no patience like me.... a propane torch is a great way to go.
I think this one is a Pineapple... it is kind of hard to tell because it looks so much like a Hillbilly ...but Elly May said she picked it down where the Pineapples are so I guess it must be that..
THIS ... is a Hillbilly. Over a pound and a half. Not bad. These have got to be some of the most beautiful tomatoes... they look like rainbows.
See? No longer piddling.... This is pretty hefty. So now of course... me and my big mouth... we have to do something with it all and fast because they are ripe .
And oh so pretty....
Until I get a hold of them.... You see... I hate peeling tomatoes. It is a messy, tedious chore. You have to scald them in boiling water until the skins split , then dump them into ice water to cool them off then slip the skins off. Of course they've had to stay in the boiling water for over a minute (at least it always seems that way) so they are pretty mushy and cooked. And we had 60lbs of these suckers to do and I was not looking forward to that part of the game. But then last night I had a brilliant idea. Back a couple weeks ago when we had a brown widow spider hiding out on top of one of my tomatoes... we torched it like we usually do those things. Since it was on the tomato ... the tomato got kind of torched too ... and the skin just shriveled up.... What if I just laid all the tomatoes out on a tray and hit them with the blow torch? Then we'd have flame roasted tomatoes. So... early this morning I got my brother to get the torch for me and Elly May and I got all our beauties ready and went to work . I've never had so much fun peeling tomatoes. Mom made us move our operation outside as she said it smelled like pot burning.... hmmm.... I didn't notice anything but she said it was strong... Anyway... so we moved outside.
The only thing I would change..... if I had a flame thrower.... it would speed things up a bit.....Maybe next year.
After we hit them on both sides with the flame, the skins just slip off in our hands and we rinse the whole thing off. Elly May then diced them up and we put them on to heat so we could can them.
We had a lot going here...
The days work.... 23 quarts... not bad. Some of it ended up being just tomato juice as I didn't want to waste anything... but we got a decent amount overall.
Phew!!! That was exhausting. But very fun. I shall look forward to peeling tomatoes from now on. Fire makes everything better. ;-) So if you have no patience like me.... a propane torch is a great way to go.
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