Tomatoes Processing

[Durgan]

http://www.durgan.org/URL/?FPYQP 15 September 2011 Tomatoes

The last of the tomatoes were picked and made into juice. Frost is eminent.

Method. Cut into pieces, boiled and mashed, strained and pressure canned in liter jars. Parsley, green peppers, celery, and carrots were added to enhance nutrition and flavor.

Due to the quantity it was necessary to process in two batches.

[Millymollymandy]

Wow, well done doing all that. Couple of questions though - couldn't you just put the tomato into the juicer without having to do the manual work with the mill/sieve thing first?

Also I don't see any Lemon Boy toms there - how did yours do and did you have any with big fissures - like great big deep black splits at the top end - I've quite a few like that and it doesn't look very pretty! Have to chop it off but just wondered if it was because of the size of the tomato - it's not normal splitting or scarring like on some of yours that I see.

I'm very pleased with the flavour of the Black Crimean/Russian ones though - and very good roasted.

[Durgan]

Wow, well done doing all that. Couple of questions though - couldn't you just put the tomato into the juicer without having to do the manual work with the mill/sieve thing first?

Also I don't see any Lemon Boy toms there - how did yours do and did you have any with big fissures - like great big deep black splits at the top end - I've quite a few like that and it doesn't look very pretty! Have to chop it off but just wondered if it was because of the size of the tomato - it's not normal splitting or scarring like on some of yours that I see.

I'm very pleased with the flavour of the Black Crimean/Russian ones though - and very good roasted.

The feed funnel on the juicer is quite small and it takes as lot of time to feed the product through. his is probably necessary for the teeth on the juicer to accomplish the necessary scrubbing.The manual screener is quick and removes most of the fiber. Different size filters are also available. I use the juice to extract slightly more nutrients from the screening residue. Sometime this step is omitted, since I suspect some bitter material is extracted particularly from the seeds of elderberries. Grape seeds are also shaved too close in the juicer, so only screening is adopted.

Probably what I am saying is the juicer is ideal for the soft fruit without hard seeds. It is a marvelous device. I did have a centrifugal juicer once and got rid of it due to the misery of cleaning. This one I now have does a excellent job. I only got it this year from my Son. A rich friend was throwing it out. So am still learning its benefits and limitations.

I picked about 15 lemon boys after taking the picture of the containers. All my lemon boys are almost perfect, and quite large. The Black Krim were the ones that were distorted, and sometimes cracked. Black krim are fairly soft when left to over-ripen on the vine. The stem end of Black Krim are always green and often scarred. Their dark color sort of hides the fruit in the vegetation, and they can be missed when ripe, since one immediately thinks they are still green at a quick glance. I notice weather has some effect as to shape and scarring. A heavy rain followed by a hot Sun is an attributable cause in my opinion, particularly if the tomato is ripe.. This is more apparent on the small cherry types causing splitting.

[contadina]

Also the pips are bitter, so either a mill or passata machine make for much tastier sauce and juice.

[Millymollymandy]

Thanks for the info - I didn't know how your juicer worked. Most of the split tomato problem I have had is with a yellow cherry tomato, which is in a pot and they split when it has rained heavily on top of them being watered regularly by us. I think I've only had one perfect Lemon Boy tomato so far! On the other hand the Black Russian ones, whilst all sorts of odd shapes, haven't split or cracked.

Still have tons of green tomatoes but luckily I have lots of plants of varying varieties so we have plenty of ripe tomatoes, and they are ripening very fast right now - must know it is coming towards the end of the season!