Persephone wrote:
Now wondering if anyone has experience/comment
on whether cherry tomatoes are good for canning.
If so, would you can whole, or puree, or...?

I have a couple of Roma plants that I use primarily for sauce, but when all
the other plants go wild, and produce more than I can eat fresh, what's left
goes into the sauce, too.

I don't peal or seed any tomatoes before making sauce. I do cut-out hard
cores and scabby skin from the heirlooms. Big tomatoes get cut in half (or
thirds or quarters), but otherwise they all go into the food processor until
it looks like a soupy, pale salsa. I simmer at 195-200 degrees until about
1/4 or 1/3 of the volume cooks-off, and the hot mix looks like a lumpy
sauce -- usually about 24-36 hours for my three gallon kettle. The mix is
then cooled in an ice bath, and run through the blender to smooth it.

Yeah, two trips through appliances sounds like a lot of work. The dishwasher
gets full pretty fast. But it's still easier -- and quicker -- than pealing
and seeding tomatoes. And more of the vegetable goes into the sauce than
into the compost pile.

Even though I never have the same mix of varieties of tomatoes in each batch
I make, the differences in the finished sauce are no different than what
you'd get from two different brands of canned sauce. It's all good by the
time it's cooked down, and when I actually use it, it'll get seasoned to
taste anyway.

I freeze my sauce, so I don't have to worry about the acidity level as much
as I would if I canned it. If your mix is too many super-sweet cherry
tomatoes, you may want to add some lemon juice or vinegar to raise the
acidity level before canning.

--
Warren H.

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