Preserving Summer's Bounty of Tomatoes
We have such an abundance of tomatoes this season!
This week, I decided it was time to prepare some of our large harvest for homemade tomato sauce. I love making lots of tomato sauce. Not only is it delicious, but it can be stored in containers in the freezer for any time the craving hits - it's a great way to preserve part of the summer season.
My housekeepers, Laura and Sanu, gathered all the newly-picked tomatoes, removed the skins, separated the flesh and seeds, and extracted the fresh, tasty juices. It was a time-consuming process, but well-worth the effort for all the wonderful sauces, and refreshing drinks, we will enjoy the rest of the year.
Here are some photos.
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- Such a beautiful bounty of tomatoes – look at all the different colors and sizes. We separated them according to color and put them on large stainless steel trays – green, red, yellow, and orange.
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- Working in batches, Sanu and Laura scored an “x” on each tomato and placed them in pots of boiling water – just long enough for the skins to start splitting.
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- This takes only a couple of minutes.
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- Once they are soft, and the skins start to separate, using a slotted spoon, or spoon colander, Sanu removed the tomatoes from the boiling water.
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- And then, put them into an ice bath to cool.
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- Sanu and Laura filled large stainless steel bowls with ice water and put them right next to the stove, so it was easy to transfer the tomatoes from the pots and trays.
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- Sanu and Laura stopped for a quick photo during their productive assembly line process.
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- Once the tomatoes were cool, they peeled off the skins – boiling them makes this so easy to do.
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- After all the skin is removed, Laura cuts the tomato in half.
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- And removes all the seeds
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- As the fleshy interior of each tomato is removed, it is dropped into a big bowl.
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- Look at all the juicy flesh from our tomatoes!
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- And nothing is wasted – here are all the outer parts of the tomatoes, which I will use for the sauce.
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- Laura pours the juicy flesh into a sieve over another bowl.
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- And all the wonderful juice starts flowing through the sieve.
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- Laura pushes the flesh through to get every drop.
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- The tomato juice made from fresh, raw tomatoes is a great source of lycopene, which is considered to have cancer preventing and reducing properties.
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- Here is the nutritious juice going through the sieve.
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- Laura pours the juice into quart-sized plastic containers.
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- Look at that beautiful color!
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- No seeds – just pure, delicious tomato juice!
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- And of course, the discarded tomato parts go into another bin for my dear chickens.
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- The outer parts are saved in a big pot.
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- And stored in the refrigerator.
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- The extracted juice was also placed in the fridge.
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- Next — the yellow and orange tomatoes!
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