Canning in January?

Making tomato juice in January. If you're scratching your head wondering why I would want to make tomato juice from the nasty tomatoes available during the winter . . . I'll let you in on my secret. The freezer! I did not make tomato juice this morning from florida tomatoes . . . these were straight out of our garden in September . . . by way of the freezer. The nifty thing about freezing tomatoes is that when you thaw them some of the water is already drawn out, cutting cooking time, and the skins fall right off, saving you having to blanch them. Plus you can gather up a whole bunch to do your preserving in great big batches instead of having to constantly be doing little batches all during tomato season. Now if you're wanting the tomatoes for their texture, best to use fresh. The freezing process ruins the fruit structure as the water in it freezes, bursting plant cell walls, and causing it to lose any firmness it might have had. No big deal for sauces and juice though.


These 4 pints are the last of our 2010 tomatoes. The rest can be found in the 30+ jars of salsa, and small batch of spaghetti sauce hanging out on the basement shelves. We are big salsa eaters here, and find it a great hit at most parties and carry-ins, so we always make a bunch. We also like to use a lot of spaghetti sauce for Friday night Italian suppers: spaghetti or pizza as our whim dictates. But we have yet to find a sauce recipe that we really like, and are working on the best mix of tomatoes that gives a good flavor, just the right balance of sweet and acid. Most of our batches to date have been a little on the acid side; we think we need more paste tomatoes and less big beefy German Pinks, which are great on flavor, but high acid too.


All this talk of tomatoes makes me want to peruse the seed catalogs. In just a few weeks we will need to be seeding our onions, and a couple of weeks after all our early crucifers. And before you know it, it will be time to till all that rotten cow manure/straw under, and uncover the strawberries, and watch for turkey eggs. Oh wait . . . we still have to survive January, February, and March. There's a lot of winter still left.


So maybe I just need to be like the cows today, huddle up, and enjoy the sunshine while we can. Another snow will be just around the corner.