Tag Archives: preserving

Easiest way to preserve tomatoes–freezing them

Having a large family, has meant that we try and do as much preserving as we can.

When it comes to putting up food for the winter months, my first choice is to freeze it.  This year we did strawberry jam and froze it.  We picked blueberries and froze them.  We made applesauce, around 200 quarts and froze it!  We also did tomatoes.

We love to eat spaghetti, at least once per week.  I have found that we can easily make a sauce with a few cans of diced tomatoes and one can of tomato sauce.  We then add basil, oregano, onion, green pepper, and garlic.  Let it simmer on the stove and add your meat.  Delicious, homemade flavor.  Once I realized that I would be able to get away with that kind of sauce for my family instead of the “store bought” version, I wanted to put up some tomatoes for the winter months.

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I have realized that the easiest way to preserve tomatoes is by freezing them.

I used to can it into jars and it would be a long process of skinning the tomatoes and smashing it—no more of that, I do not have time.  I have found this method to be super easy and the best, quickest version for our large family.

I actually had a fussing one year old, while I was trying to do this so our 8 year old took charged and did it all for me!

The tomatoes that we had purchased were a thick meaty type, so we chopped the tomatoes in quarters..


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Then placed them into the food processor, skins and all
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let it whirl, until pureed
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We then poured them into quart sized containers.  Put them in our freezer until ready to use.  Simple and easy.  Makes a delicious, fresh from the garden flavor spaghetti sauce.061

 

Making and freezing homemade applesauce

When we had four little ones, I used to do a lot of preserving for our family and then the Lord blessed us with 6 children all in a row.  I haven’t gotten to do as much canning as I would have liked to do over the past seven years, but we have slowly started enjoying doing things like strawberry picking and blueberry picking.  We have been able to make  our own freezer strawberry jam and have a supply of blueberries in the freezer for them to eat throughout the winter months.  Making and freezing applesauce is something that we also try and do because of its ease..  We don’t usually pick the apples ourselves, we have a Mennonite store that we go to to purchase them fairly inexpensively.  It is a great fruit that doesn’t have to be done all in one day either a bonus with having many little ones.004

What a blessing we had received this past week, our neighbor had an apple tree in her yard that was abundantly flowing with apples.  I had asked her if she did anything with them and she said she did not because they were too tart.  Well my children had each taken a few to munch on and were liking them.  We then decided it was time for us to start making and freezing homemade applesauce this year.


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We had three pots cooking most all of the day on the stove.  I just wash our apples and leave them the way that they are, no peeling or slicing required.  We put about 1-2 inches of water in the pot and place the lid on it.  Keep it on a high heat until it boils then turn it down to a medium to low heat to keep it simmering, until all of the apples are soft and the tops ones are splitting.  Note….we do make sure to remove the leaves from the apples,if you do not,it tends to make a bitter taste in your sauce.

008We then put it in our Victorio food strainer and let the machine do the separating.   You pour your cooked apple mash into the top of the machine and turn the handle.  Out one shoot come the clean applesauce and out the other is all the peeling, seeds, and stem.  Could this get any easier??

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This year was so great doing it because I had most of my children helping with the process.  Even the little ones were enjoying taking a turn turning the handle.  009

I am not sure on the name of the apples that the tree produces but to us, they tasted like McIntosh apples.  We only needed to add about 2 cups of sugar to this large black roaster pan.  Last year we used Jonagold apples and did not use any sugar at all,but the year before we used McIntosh and had to add about the same amount of sugar.
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Having to do this on a school day and with all of the demands that are placed upon us, we made sure to make an easy dinner early on so that we could focus our day on doing apples.  While everyone was getting ready I made a pan of sloppy joe casserole and homemade macaroni and cheese.  I placed it in the oven and left it there until dinner time.  An easy meal and only 2 pans to clean up, we of course used paper plates as to not have to wash so many dishes.  Oh and yes we had applesauce with it too.003

When it was all said and done we came out with about 100 quarts of applesauce that we put in freezer bags.  I then diced up about 25 bags of apples to use in baking foods like apple dapple cake, oatmeal apple bars, and crockpot apple oatmeal—a recommendation from our neighbor.  I

This is the first year we didn’t make any applesauce for a baby, but if I would have, I would have made it with no sugar and then put it in my ice cube trays and froze them.  When frozen, just pop them out into a ziploc baggie.  You only have to remove the amount that you need.

I know that most people don’t enjoy making and freezing homemade applesauce, they prefer to can it.  Our family enjoys it frozen.  I like to get a bag out of the freezer in the morning and let it thaw for dinner time.  When we serve it we like it partially slushy.  It is very good, try it sometime.

Why do we freeze our foods that we harvest instead of canning them in jars???

The reason we started freezing it was for safety reasons. After I did all my canning years before, I started reading stories about babies being more susceptible to food borne illnesses. As a mom, I never would want to harm my children in that way.  Well when we had so many little ones, it was pointless to serve a “safe frozen food” to some and then to others my canned items.  After that I got rid of my canner and jars.  We started freezing everything.  I know that it is not the first choice for most foods especially for pears and peaches, but I choose to make the foods that are good frozen like applesauce and homemade freezer jam.  Maybe one day I will go back to canning in jars, but for now,with many littles ones to worry about, I will stick to freezing them.  I am thinking I might need to invest in another deep freezer.

 

Easy strawberry freezer jam lower sugar recipe

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I love to can and freeze foods. Some see it as more work to be done, I see it as a challenge I am willing to do.   It gives me a sense of accomplishment to see all of the rows of jars on the countertop.  Also knowing that I am preparing nutritious foods that do not contain high fructrose corn syrup or any other perservative for my children.

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We eat many peanut butter and jam sandwiches around here.  Most everyday for lunch that is what we have.  We make a very simple, low sugar, homemade freezer jam that my children love.
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We had a good time picking strawberries yesterday.  Every year I think to myself, “Why am I doing this?”  because it can get a little frazzled at times, but I know that we are creating memories that my children will always remember.

Our adventure included these little facts:

  • we were there for 3 hours
  • took 3 potty breaks to the van
  • 2 snack breaks
  • the 3 and 4 year old grew tired of picking and decided to pick the newly planted strawberry plants
  • the 3 year old boy, decided to use the bathroom right out in the open field.
  • the 2 year old, stumbled twice on the box of picked berries, resulting in smashed ones
  • the baby was stained red as he was enjoying eating out of the boxes we had already picked.
  •  We picked 4 flats of berries, not bad considering we had a 1,2,3,4,6,8,12, and 15 year old

We had a good time, and had a nice fellowship day with another family. We came home and threw in a dvd and watched a show while we hulled the strawberries.

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Easy strawberry freezer jam recipe

measure 5 cups of berries into your food processor or blender.

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Add 3 cups of raw sugar—that is all we use and find that the taste is sufficient for our family. pulse until mixed

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Pour into a large container.

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In small saucepan boil 3/4 cups of water and a package of pectin. we use the bulk package so we measure out 1/3 cup of pectin. Boil this for 2 minutes, whisking quite rapidly.

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Mix into your pureed strawberry mixture.

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pour into plastic containers and cover.  Let sit for 24 hours on countertop.

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Set in freezer and you have a nice supply for the next coming year. We did 47 pints of jam this year.

This is also good over yogurt, on homemade waffles or on popovers.