Rotten Tomatoes

Ok, not quite rotten, but pretty darn ugly. While at work the other day, I was doing my daily rounds of produce inspection, and I looked down at our organic Roma tomatoes and uuuhhhh ohhhh. Rotten tomatoes. 

I went through the whole bucket of them, about half of them were still perfect and beautiful, and a third were so disgusting or fuzzy they had to be thrown out. But, the other little bit – well – I donno, maybe had potential. Either, the tops were rotty, or there were big ole bruises, or they had weird black spots on them. I figured no one would buy them, but I kept them out for the last few hours. No one did, so I bagged them up at the end of the day and took them home. 

 

When I got home, I did a bit of research, and found out tomatoes are rather easy to can. In fact, the recipe in my Ball canning book was only like 10 lines long… At first I was thinking tomato sauce. I mean, my tomatoes were pretty ugly, I didn’t want that to show through the clear jar. But then, I realized my 16 romas did not equal the 45 pounds the recipe called for… I also didn’t want to can them whole – cause again… they weren’t gonna be whole when I cut the bad parts off. So chopped it was.

 

Here is the recipe I used - straight out of the Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving also found here.

Tomatoes – Packed in Own Juice

Ingredients:

• 2-1/2 to 3-1/2 lb ripe tomatoes (about 8 to 11 medium) per quart 
• Ball® Citric Acid or bottled lemon juice
• Salt, optional
• Glass preserving jars with lids and bands

Directions:

1. Prepare boiling water canner. Heat jars and lids in simmering water until ready for use. Do not boil. Set bands aside
2. Process filled jars in a boiling water canner 1 hour and 25 minutes for pints and quarts, adjusting for altitude. Remove jars and cool. Check lids for seal after 24 hours. Lid should not flex up and down when center is pressed.
3. Wash tomatoes. Dip in boiling water 30 to 60 seconds. Immediately dip in cold water. Slip off skins. Trim away any green areas and cut out core. Leave tomatoes whole or cut into halves or quarters. (I diced mine… Cause they were weird shapes after trimming the gross off. I also squeezed out most of the seeds)
4. Add ½ tsp Ball® Citric Acid or 2 Tbsp bottled lemon juice to each hot quart jar. Add ¼ tsp Ball® Citric Acid or 1 Tbsp bottled lemon juice to each hot pint jar
5. Pack tomatoes in hot jars until space between tomatoes fills with juice leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Add 1 teaspoon salt to each quart jar, 1/2 teaspoon to each pint jar, if desired. (I only put a pinch) Remove air bubbles. Wipe rim. Center hot lid on jar. Apply band and adjust until fit is fingertip tight.
   
   
   
    

It was really easy actually. And most of the weird looking parts of the tomato came off with the skin! The deeper defects, I just cut off. Using my 16 romas, I was able to make 2 pints and 1 half pint jars. The tomatoes are beautiful in their jars, bright and real looking. They look wayyy better than commercial canned tomatoes!! 

 

The best part is – canning these old, ugly tomatoes gave them a second chance!