Summer Canning and Food Preserving 2017

[charla]

I don't do much preserving, but I have been making refrigerator dill pickles pretty much every week of the summer. They are so yummy to have on hand. I also bought cherry tomato plants by accident instead of the big tomatoes. We don't much care for cherry tomatoes so I've been freezing them to add to soups and sauces. Is there a foolproof way to loosen and remove the skins on the tomatoes before putting them in soups or sauces? I hate tomato skins ruining the texture of my smooth soups.

[RiverRock]

Originally Posted by charla

I don't do much preserving, but I have been making refrigerator dill pickles pretty much every week of the summer. They are so yummy to have on hand...Is there a foolproof way to loosen and remove the skins on the tomatoes before putting them in soups or sauces? I hate tomato skins ruining the texture of my smooth soups.

I might try refrigerator pickles because my plants are slowly producing and I don't think I will have enough to fill a canner full at any one time. Can you share your recipe and tips?

For the cherry tomatoes, I wonder if the skins will easily release when they are defrosted? Another idea is to put them all in a slow cooker, and after they are cooked you can strain out the skins. This is what I do to remove pits from small plums.

When I can tomatoes I cut a little x at the "pointy" end, dip them in scalding water, and then after they have cooled the skins slip right off. That sounds like a lot of work for cherry tomatoes, though.

[charla]

I loosely use a pickle canning recipe (3 cups vinegar, 3 cups water, 1 cup pickling salt, dill weed and garlic for the top of the jars) and for one quart jar of pickles, I usually boil together 1 1/4 cups filtered water, 1 1/4 cups vinegar, 1/4 cup canning salt, one peeled clove of garlic, a few peppercorns, granulated onion, and dill weed and sometimes a jalapeno that I've sliced but not all the way through so some of the heat can come out but not too much. While it is coming to a boil, I cut up the cucumbers (sometimes I use mini cukes and make them into spears and sometimes I use English cucumbers and slice them and then I stuff them in the jar. When the liquid comes to a boil and the salt is dissolved, I pour it into the jar to cover the pickles. Most of the time I have plenty of liquid and have to throw some away or I have to make a little extra. It all depends on how packed in the jar the cucumbers are. They are pretty good the next day, but they keep getting better, but we just can't hold out that long.

[RiverRock]

Thanks Charla, I am going to try to make refrigerator pickles when I have enough cucumbers from the garden. They have been slow to start, but there are so many flowers and the vines have exploded. I don't think it will be long before I have an abundance.

One of my jars of picked beans didn't seal.

In the last couple of days I have blanched and have frozen 5 meal portions of cut beans and a large bag or long beans (I saved the most tender and narrow beans to keep long). My beans are producing like crazy so I might make more pickled beans in a few days.