A busy canning weekend

5 cans of green beans, 4 pints of chutney, and two more cans of sauce! It was a very productive weekend canning and I am the proud new owner of a pressure canner!








The chutney is extra special dear to my heart - Mom's recipe but made with fresh tomatoes for the first time! It is a little lighter in color because many of the tomatoes were beautiful yellow ones.

Step one of Making Tomato sauce

Step 1. Clean your sauce tomatoes and remove greens and stems. Gently core tops.

Step 2. Place prepared tomatoes in a stock pot such as a dutch oven or this Le Creuset and bring to a boil.

Step 3. Turn down heat and simmer until tomatoes fall apart. You can also use a potato masher to assist. You will have a wonderful start as pictured below.

The next step it to run it through the food mill twice. The first time on the largest sieve to strain the skins. The second time use the smallest sieve to catch the seeds!

Then you reserve the tomato pulp and use it to make sauce, according to the recipe you choose.

Hurricane Irene Tomato Sauce

In preparation for the unknown, I harvested all ready and ripening tomatoes before Hurricane Irene arrived. These two pints happily joined the blueberry jam on the top shelf of the freezer in the basement.

I am happy I made these wee 2 pints  because we didn't have power for four days. I am also happy I didn't do any more drastic harvesting before Irene's arrival because our garden weathered the storm just fine! One week after Irene, my green tomatoes have ripened and I foresee much more sauce in jars this weekend!