Cherry tomatoes good to can?

 
Hi, Folks -

My tomatoes did well this year, thank goodness.
This is Southern California coastal.

The cherry tomatoes really went ape.  (That they
are next to the compost heap may be a factor!)

I canned some regular tomatoes earlier this year.

Now wondering if anyone has experience/comment
on whether cherry tomatoes are good for canning.
If so, would you can whole, or puree, or...?

Thanks for advice.

--

Persephone

 <Persephone> wrote in message

We had an abundance in cherry tomatoes one year and used them to make tomato
juice, which we canned. The juice tasted fine, although it was sweeter than
our usual tomato juice because they were one of the super-sweet varieties.
The one problem we encountered was that the juice was more watery than our
usual tomato juice. We haven't canned any since, but I would suggest cooking
them longer so that more of the liquid evaporates.

I really can't imagine using them in any other way. Trying to peel them for
whole tomatoes would take forever, and leaving the skins on unreasonable
because the skins are usually very tough.

JPS

 On 9/26/05 1:08 AM, in article wnLZe.19447$Ix4.10573@okepread03, "B & J"


I missed this first time around! Try drying the cherry tomatoes! excellent.

Cheryl

 Persephone wrote:

I have a couple of Roma plants that I use primarily for sauce, but when all
the other plants go wild, and produce more than I can eat fresh, what's left
goes into the sauce, too.

I don't peal or seed any tomatoes before making sauce. I do cut-out hard
cores and scabby skin from the heirlooms. Big tomatoes get cut in half (or
thirds or quarters), but otherwise they all go into the food processor until
it looks like a soupy, pale salsa. I simmer at 195-200 degrees until about
1/4 or 1/3 of the volume cooks-off, and the hot mix looks like a lumpy
sauce -- usually about 24-36 hours for my three gallon kettle. The mix is
then cooled in an ice bath, and run through the blender to smooth it.

Yeah, two trips through appliances sounds like a lot of work. The dishwasher
gets full pretty fast. But it's still easier -- and quicker -- than pealing
and seeding tomatoes. And more of the vegetable goes into the sauce than
into the compost pile.

Even though I never have the same mix of varieties of tomatoes in each batch
I make, the differences in the finished sauce are no different than what
you'd get from two different brands of canned sauce. It's all good by the
time it's cooked down, and when I actually use it, it'll get seasoned to
taste anyway.

I freeze my sauce, so I don't have to worry about the acidity level as much
as I would if I canned it. If your mix is too many super-sweet cherry
tomatoes, you may want to add some lemon juice or vinegar to raise the
acidity level before canning.

--
Warren H.

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 Persephone said:


I like to dry them (dehydrators are fairly inexpensive and
should last for many years).  I cut them in half and lay
them on the racks.  Dried cherry tomatoes are sweet enough
to eat out of hand, but also have that concentrated dried
tomato tang.  Love them added to spinach and feta omelets!

--
Pat in Plymouth MI ('someplace.net' is comcast)
  
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
(attributed to Don Marti)