Two days ago we hit up the West Seattle Farmer’s Market to pick up some of our regulars (pasta, juice, herbs) and also with the goal of buying enough tomatoes and pears for another round of canning. Tomatoes are a hard thing, because you need SO MANY of them to get a good amount of canning content produced. We picked up 11lbs. of hot houses ($$!) and 8 pears.
Upon arriving home from work this eve, I pulled those tomatoes and pears out of the fridge. Tomatoes went in the pot first because you have to boil them down for so long. Tonight they boiled down for nearly 2 hours after I first sent them through the blender for puree-ing. About a month ago I finally found this website that shows how to make tomato sauce without the need for peeling the tomatoes. I don’t have the patience for shocking the skins off tomatoes – sorry.
Pears in their salt bath, waiting to be boiled
So I had tomato sauce going on the stove already and I dove next into peeling and quartering the pears. Did you know you can keep pears in a solution of water and salt and they won’t brown? Well, you can, and I found that way more convenient than using ascorbic acid (vitamin C), because who really has powdered vitamin C on hand?
My goal with the pears was to use my new book In Season by Sarah Raven and make “Spiced Preserved Pears” along with a couple jars of regular ol’ canned pears. Both versions were very simple, the tricky part for me was balancing the timing of getting the tomato sauce to finish up and get in the cans at nearly the same time I needed to get the spiced pears and regular pears in their cans. The whole canning process isn’t a frenzy for me, it all comes together at the point before you get the cans filled and into the bath, and tonight was the most tricky. I had all four burners rolling at full boil and had to time pulling them off in order but not over-cooking any pots. Phew!
The finished result
Three hours later I have five quart jars to pull out of the water bath: two tomato sauce, two pears in sugary water, and one jar of spiced pears. So, yeah, the tomato sauce cost me around $18/jar. A little embarrassing and I know if I shopped better I could cut that price in half at least – for now I am content with knowing I can make quite a few spaghetti dinners that didn’t originate in California.
