Season 2019 journal

[taboule]

Weather turned a bit cooler the past 1-2 weeks and back to nice being out there. We've been picking only what we could eat or gift, it became work for anything else, including maintenance or spraying. Finally a week ago, we got a break in the temps and forecast for heavy rains. I thought this was my chance to preserve a decent batch, else much of the crop would go to waste -split-crack-burst and the mess that follows. So I went out and picked a few baskets, this is half, I had to empty in trays and reload.

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I let them sit until ready to process, and give some of the less ripe ones a chance to fully ripen. Leave them in the cool basement, single layer mostly in large flat bins, huddled in the darkness.

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Then on Sunday, dear wife said she wanted to help me make sauce, as I had a weekend full list of honey-dos. So she cleaned and prepped the below, about 200 lbs from picked.

prepped-togo-25aug19.jpg

cont...

[taboule]

The pressing/juicing part was the fastest and easiest. Then the cooking, total of ~60 quarts here with more waiting to be added once reduced down.

making-sauce-25aug19.jpg

I cooked it down a bit this time, to a nice saucy consistency. Still had to can in 2 batches giving the volume, the AA30 can do only 14 quarts at a time. Here's the end result, 28x jars, cooling and pinging away.

28x-aug19.jpg

DW cut up two special specimens for savoring, his and hers (BW & SOO) with a side of salty black olives.

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[bower]

Wow... what an awesome crop! The sauce looks amazing too.

I would eat a slice of that SOO right now...

[Labradors2]

Looking good! That's a heck of a lot of tomatoes! Glad you made a ton of sauce .

Linda