Tomato Canning

Last week, as planned, I made a list of things-to-do away from the computer, and one of the items, which I procrastinated on for the last month, was digging out a portion of our crawl space to make room for canned goods (they store best in dark cold spaces). Well, guess what? Putting it on the list made it happen. Every member of the family pitched in (besides Zizou of course), the hero of the project being our 9-year-old who voluntarily carried 20 buckets of dirt down the 30 steps to the front of the house.

I am so happy to have that done, my canned goods now have a dedicated space and so do my reusable bottles and jars.

That said, I thought this week would be an ideal time to post about (crushed) tomato canning. Canning has a reputation of scaring the novice cook, but there really is nothing to it, as it seriously is not as difficult as one might expect. All you need here is canning jars (I use Le Parfait canning jars in this recipe), a large pot, a colander, a ladle, a towel, a rock, and tomatoes of course. Visit your farmer's market at closing time to get the best deal on a large amount. In my town, $5/5lbs is a good deal.

Every cook has his/her way, and this is how I do mine:

1 - Sterilize the jars: Dunk them in a large pot of boiling water and set them aside to dry on a towel.

2 - In the same hot bath, dunk the tomatoes for about 2 minutes (that's to make peeling easy), and pull them out one by one into a colander to cool.

3 - Peel, core, and hand-crush the tomatoes, one by one, into a large bowl.

4 - Ladle the crushed tomatoes into the jars (french canning jars have a fill line), wipe the jars rims clean, add a rubber gasket on the lids and clip the jars shut.

5 - Lower the filled jars in the same pot of water (you can also stack them up if you use a tall pot), push a towel between them and add a weight, such as a rock, on them (so they don't cling into each other and break during boiling).

6 - Add water so that the jars are submerged by 1-inch of water and bring to a boil.

7 - After 45 minutes of boiling, turn off the heat.

8 - Let cool and take the jars out of the water to dry.

9 - Test proper canning by un-clipping a jar. If it opens, the canning process failed. If you use Mason Jars (screw-tops), the lid should be depressed indicating a proper vacuum.

10 - Store in a dark, cool place, preferably a freshly dug crawl space ;) so that your canned treasures can last and taste as good as my grandmother's 1978 plums, which I tasted a couple of years ago. They were in-cre-di-ble. The eau-de-vie marinade might have had something to do with their tastiness though...

Just looking at that picture reminds me that we live in an earthquake prone region... it just added a new item to my TO-DO list: Secure shelving before next shake;)

Time Wasters

After catching up with friends, and taking care of the many odds and ends upon my return (tomato canning, lemonade making, deep-house cleaning, sewing, house painting, wall repair, stove repair, flat tire, etc.), here I am, re-emerging with alone time (for the first time in 3 months), and an urge to write again. Sorry for the long absence!

The kids went back to class and as with every back-to-school, I am set with a set of new school-year resolutions (along with most parents of school aged kids). I am ready for a new beginning, full of hope. I again hope for a better, more organized year with more time for human relations and more me time (the latter in the hope to be more zen as I often worry about the memory that my boys will have of me later in life...stressed out, too busy, ?). I hope to hug and cuddle my kids and husband more. I hope to have friends and neighbors over more often, and more spontaneously (my perfectionism too often keeps me from doing so). I hope to get closer to my dad. I hope to call my mother-in-law more often. I hope to give myself a facial once a week. To sum it all, I need to make more time or rather, I need to stop wasting time.

My household is very organized, and by both cutting off TV and simplifying our lifestyles, we have greatly expanded our leisure time, but I still find myself sometimes wasting away by either procrastinating or aimlessly surfing the net (the latter usually being a product of the former).

And since it is well known that e-mail and the web are the bane of the procrastinator's existence, I plan on spending less time on them. Not so easy when you write a weekly blog, but doable. I already deleted my Facebook account. I am happy with my social life and felt that FB did not do anything for me at this point in my life, and it ate into our precious time. I also vouch to only check my emails twice a day and keep an empty in-box (better for the mind, better for the environment...not unnecessarily cluttering up a running server somewhere). I have even contemplated the idea of sticking to short email replies and adding: “Sent from my iPhone” or “Sent from the road” to my email signature ;). From what I learned in an article, I also need to make a list of computer tasks and block time for it, just as I need to make a list of tasks away from the computer so that I don't get tempted to jump back into it. By breaking down a large project into the set of smaller tasks required to complete it, I should also be able to take care of my propensity to procrastinate.

If all goes well and I follow my resolutions carefully, I should be one zen, entertaining and cuddly mom by next year ;), and hopefully with even one less wrinkle (from the weekly facial).

What's your time waster?