Tomatoes For Canning and Cooking

Tomatoes For Canning and Cooking

Tomatoes the Super Food.

It is Fall and the home garden is producing tomatoes by the bucket full. Every time I checked, the health  value of tomatoes has increased. A recent WebMD article reported on 10 reasons to eat tomatoes. Some of the reasons will certainly get your attention, such as a substantive reduction in the risk of pancreatic cancer. See http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/features/health-properties-tomatoes. My most recent effort to ensure that I have access to plenty of tomatoes all year is the canning of tomatoes as a salsa base. My most recent salsa recipe is a chili tomato salsa.

  Recipe:

 Chili Tomato Salsa

Ingredients

Half of a 5 gallon bucket of tomatoes, diced, with skin on.
                              
2 large green peppers.

1/2 cup of sugar or sugar substitute.

1 large sweet onion, diced.

1 packet Mrs. Wages Tomato Chili Base.
This chili base is easy to get from the Internet. If the Mrs. Wages Chili Base is not available, use 1 tablespoon chili powder, 1 tablespoon curry powder and 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce.

2 lbs. of medium tomato  salsa from the local grocery store

1 12 oz. can tomato paste

1/2 cup balsamic vinegar

1/2 cup red wine or apple cider vinegar

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon pepper

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 cup dried potato flakes

Note: Many tomato canning recipes call for the removal of the skin. Wrong Move.  You substantively diminish the health properties of tomatoes when you remove the skin. If you have a problem with the skin, then dice the tomatoes very finely.

Combine all the ingredients in a large 10 quart-pot. Slow boil and stir for at least 30 minutes. Add the potato flakes and stir well just before bottling. This thickens the mixture.

This should make 7-8  one quart bottles.  With tomatoes you do not need to use a pressure cooker for the canning process. Steam canning will work fine because of the acidic content of the recipe. The vinegar certainly adds to the acidic content of the tomatoes.

Many Uses For Chili Tomato Salsa. 

This chili tomato salsa will provide the sauce for pasta and meat balls and similar pasta recipes. This salsa will provide the sauce for chili dishes. It will also serve as a salsa and chips dish. The sauce is great for use in a meat loaf recipe. For a quick tasty dish, brown one to two pounds of sliced Polish sausage, or bratwurst, with onions and green peppers, and a tablespoon of olive oil in a frying pan.  Add a quart of the  salsa. Bring to a slow boil and serve. This should take less than 15 minutes.

If Times Are difficult.

If their is an emergency or you are traveling light and you need a quick meal for yourself or a group try the following. You need cans of Spam, bottle/s of Chili Tomato Salsa and a loaf of bread. Allocate a cup of salsa, half a can of Spam and two slices of bread per person. Dice the Spam, brown the Spam in the bottom of a saucepan or "billy", add the salsa and bring to a slow boil while stirring, then serve over slices of bread.

For many years I enjoyed riding my motorcycle on the mountain roads of Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming. When camping by the roadside I made my meals with the aid of a "billy" and a campfire. The billy has been described as follows:

A billycan, more commonly known simply as a billy or occasionally as a billy can (billy tin in Canada), is a lightweight cooking pot which is used on a campfire or a camping stove.

See November 11, 2010 posting for more on cooking with Spam.

Roasted and Grilled Baby Potatoes

Roasted and Grilled Baby Potatoes


It is Fall, and potato harvest time. We grow red potatoes and store them in the root cellar. As we harvest the potatoes we set aside the small or baby potatoes. These are often disregarded by the commercial growers. We love them. My wife, Judy, waits with salt shaker in hand, washes these small juicy potatoes and eats them raw. Most of these potatoes are from 3/4 to 2 inches across.


Roasted Baby Potatoes

Ingredients

2 to 3 pounds of baby potatoes
1/2 cup of olive oil

Al's Quick Fix Spice Mixture


1. First, clean the potatoes and dice them into approximately one inch pieces.


2. Second, place potatoes, olive oil, and 1 tablespoon of  Al's Quick Fix Spice Mixture in a bowl and mix well.

3. Third, spread the potatoes on a cookie sheet.

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.

Roast for 30 minutes until lightly browned.

What is Al's Quick Fix Spice Mixture?

This is a multipurpose mixture to save time. I first started using it when time was short and I has to serve mashed potatos or mashed squash.

The ingredients.

1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon pepper
1 tablespoon of Mrs. Dash Tomato,Basil and garlic blend
1/2 teaspoon ginger powder
1 teaspoon Paprika
1 teaspoon curry powder
1 tablespoon of dried parsley

Typically, I use 4 times the amount for each item listed above and place in a quart canning jar, so there is plenty of room to mix and shake the ingredients well.

If making mashed potatoes or mashed Queensland Blue Squash, I add 1 tablespoon of Spice Mixture for each quart of mashed potatoes.

Grilling Potatoes

If grilling the larger potatoes, mix the Spice Mixture with olive oil and rub the potatoes in the mix. For grilling the diced baby potatoes, prepare as above for baking and then wrap with aluminium foil and place on the grill

Leftover Roasted Baby Potatoes

Place the leftovers in a bowl sprinkle some cheese (or a 50-50 mixture of grated cheese and bread crumbs) on top and bake for 30 minutes at 300 degrees. If I had some bacon bits I sometimes mixed the bacon bits with the potatoes. Leave the lid off to keep the potatoes crisp.

Grandpa  Had It Easy.

Growing up in Outback Queensland I had pleasant memories of the home grown potatoes being available all year without any great storage facilities such as a root cellar.  In Northern Utah we get one growing season. In Springsure Queensland we were very close to the Tropic of Capricorn and Grandpa could grow several crops at different times to ensure a continuous supply for most of the year. In truth it was not that easy because the warmer climate did generate more pests and diseases. Grandpa did move the potatoes around to ensure the pests and diseases could not move easily from one years's potatoes to the next.  Baked potatoes, with the Sunday roast meat, often chicken prepared by Grandma were a constant and I counted on them every Sunday of the year.