How to Peel Tomatoes (for people who have no patience...)

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.

Kitchen Stuff

This is kind of mish mash post. We've been really busy in the kitchen of late. Then I picked up Salmonella from something (still not sure what exactly... but something outside..) and that took me out of commission for some time. Let me tell you , Salmonella is NO fun. I wanted to die. And I think I had a pretty mild case actually with none of the usual symptoms except possible hurling my guts out. ANYway, moving on, I am better, several pounds lighter and willing to look at food again. I've had enough energy to do things for a few days then I overdue it and have to crash for a few days. But it is so good to be able to DO something when I can that maybe I get carried away. Anyway, I'm thankful for whatever I get.

Isn't this weird? I thought the leaf coming out of one was weird but this is definitely weirder... is that a word?

I'm not sure what variety these are because they don't look like anything I planted. Except for the one on the right which is a Poona Kheera.

Blueberry ice cream. It looked very strange. But it tasted very good. Now we have no more blueberries because I used them all up.

A Hillbilly. A fat one. I was very proud.

TWO Fat Hillbillies.

They are going to bury us soon ...

But we are fighting back by sucking the life out of them in the dehydrator .

Fermenting apple juice .

This tastes better..

Well look what we have here.

I was just leaving....

Pardon me...

I love red. Well, when it is on tomatoes and stuff.... I can't wear it.

More squash.... Elly May chops it up for pickles. I think we canned 19 pints of stuff that day.... I didn't get a picture because it got put away before that happened. And by then I was too sick to care about anything.

Still not enough for ketchup though...

But we did make tomato soup.

Then I made Minnesota Chili Sauce which is some old tomato relish type recipe I got a long time ago. It is really good on meat . First you have to scald and peel tomatoes though. Not my favorite job. So Elly May did it. ;-)

And I chopped.

Pretty.....

On to the beans. We've been saving them up for days til we had enough to do to make it worthwhile to heat the kitchen up with the canner.

I wish the purple ones staid purple after they got cooked... It would look so much nicer...

One batch down...

For the next batch we actually had flowering dill heads .. FINally....

And I put some of our yellow peppers in.. just because they looked cute.

Voila.... Phew! I feel very accomplished. And tired. There are still more tomatoes... More squash... but they can wait. Especially since we have a major heat wave hitting us now with some triple digits. The pool is very nice about now.

In da Kitchen

Canning season is in full swing around here. I'm already exhausted. But very happy to have accomplished something for once. Yesterday was a very very long day in the kitchen but it was worth it . Until I tried to walk this morning that is (after standing all day yesterday everything hurt ) .

Basil for more pesto.

The day started very early and it was actually misting which was kind of strange but nice too... I had my brother get a ladder for me because I needed to check on the progress of my hop blossoms. Some were ready! The book on hop growing I have says to wear long sleeves and gloves to protect you from the hop spines. Hop spines? What hop spines? I said to myself. They have kinda rough stems but I didn't remember any spines. So I climbed up there barefoot and bare armed and with paper bags clipped to my skirt and started picking. The smell of the yellow lupulin was wonderful. But it made my fingers very sticky.. (they did warn to wear gloves...) . After I got down and some time later, my arm was stinging after I got it wet. I looked down and it was all badly scratched up. Where on earth did I do that? Duh.... I guess they were right after all about those spines.... ANYway, the hops are now drying in paper bags (I don't have that many) . Some , like the Cascade ones aren't ready yet so I need to wait a few days .

This... is a Poona Kheera cuke. My first one. It is supposed to be that color. But the weird thing is that strange stem and leaf coming out of the middle.

Pesto chicken. Very tasty. Though it doesn't look too pretty here. Just take my word for it.

That one in the middle there weighs 1.2 lbs. These are all Italian Heirlooms. I got the seed from Seed Savers Exchange. I have 11 different tomato varieties but right now the Italians and the Silvery Fir Trees seem to be the first producers. Tomatoes mean... salsa... among other things. Elly May has been waiting ages to make salsa. She made a big batch yesterday.

It was very yummy.

With all the pickling going on, I needed a vast supply of apple cider vinegar. I have a 30 gal wood barrel over half full (actually I think it must have about 20 gal in it) of cider vinegar and I decided to try it and see if it would work. I was pleasantly surprised by the flavor. You can even taste the oak.. very different from all the vinegars I've fermented in glass jars. Now I have a vinegar barrel! All I need to do is keep adding fermented (hard) cider and it will continue to turn into tasty vinegar. Back in pioneer days , a vinegar barrel was a very valuable thing. Anyway, back to pickling.... I got about two gallons of vinegar out and into gallon jugs to use. Isn't it a pretty color?

We don't have a ton of beans coming in yet , maybe a handful ever day or so but we saved them up and I had enough for 3 pints. Sadly, the purple ones turn green when cooked so they don't stay that neat color.

Time for more zucchini pickles! Mom insisted I open a jar of the first ones to taste so we could see if we even like the things before I go doing a whole mess of them . .. They are VERY good. We are down 2 jars already. At this rate there won't be any left come the end of summer. At least people are eating squash. Though I hardly think it would be considered a health food by the time it goes through the sugary brine.

We decided to try cutting them this way for a change. Then they are more like bread and butter pickles , which is what they taste like incidentally. .. They are soaking in cold water and salt .

The brine. Vinegar, sugar, turmeric , mustard seeds and celery seeds. This is potent stuff. Sniffing is bound to give you a major zing up your nose and clear your sinuses. It is like that sharp burn when you light a match under your nose and you get the sulphur or magnesium burst. I love that....

Add the little dears and soak 2 hrs. more....

Then into the jars they go.

The days work... well, part of it. I timed this very poorly. By the time I needed to get everything in the canner , it was right about time for Elly May to be needing at least half the burners for dinner prep. She was very sweet about it but I know I was in her way and she was getting nervous about getting dinner on the table at a decent hour. It all worked out. Though if we had more burners that would be great....

Today, I was beat and exhausted , though surprised to be able to spend the day up instead of in bed as I usually do after overdoing it like yesterday. There were still things to do... though Elly May kept warning me that I should just sit down with Frank on the couch and rest. She is so good to me... Anyway, there were jalapenos to pickle. .. and pesto to make. I nearly gave up because standing hurt so much and I was exhausted but just a few jars of jalapenos wouldn't kill me would they???

Well, they sure give one a scratchy throat , that's for sure.

Finished.... PHEW!!! I can collapse now. No more canning tomorrow. I won't do it. I promise. I'll be lucky if my feet let me walk. But I am happy. After so long spent in enforced rest and never accomplishing anything because of feeling so lousy or exhausted and feeling completely useless at times.... it is such a huge blessing to be able to DO something. Even if it takes me a week or so to recover from it. So thank you Lord for the strength you gave ... if only for 2 days. It was grand. ;-)