The Big Tomato Crush

Tags

abundance, friends, jars, photos, preserving, summer, tomatoes

Once tomato season ends, we rely on canned tomatoes and sauce. Having decided to haul out the KitchenAid and the food strainer attachment, we decided to go big, and bought 3 half-bushels: that’s 75 lbs of ripe Roma tomatoes. 

There were six of us in all, to share the work. We washed, cut, squished, boiled, bottled, canned – and conquered! Next year, we’re thinking of doing a bigger batch, and adding two or three outdoor propane burners to boil the sauce down. And we might add more people, too.

Note: click on any image to see a slide show of the day.  

The calm before the Big Crush – tools assembled, and even a process map!

Outside prep: the tomatoes, the wash station, the cutting boards

Washing and chopping is a social occasion.

Squishing tomatoes is a messy job. The Kitchen Aid makes it much, much easier than last year’s hand-crank food mill.

We bottled 57 pints of marinara sauce.

And we ended the day with a spaghetti supper, cold drinks, and entertaining conversation. Thank you Claire, Amelia, Tiffany, Peter, and Joe!

 

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