(Sunday scheduling fail by FYWP!)
From commentor Satby:
I grow only heirloom tomatoes in my garden, along with the other stuff. It was a predominately cooler summer than normal here in SW MI, so the tomatoes were a bit slow to come in, but when they did, whammo! For the past week I’ve been canning, dehydrating (which has been more work than I think it’s worth) and freezing what I can. As I live in orchard and fruit country, I’ve also been doing jams and jellies; low sugar with Pomona’s Pectin, which I recommend to everyone.
And then I discovered the Ball Fresh-Tech and tomato-basil jam…. and there’s no going back. I’ve tweaked the basic recipe you can find online anywhere to use balsamic vinegar instead of lemon juice and it’s such a hit with the skeptics that it’s now one of the jams most people ask me to make. For those with an oversupply of cherry tomatoes especially, it’s a great way to keep them from going to waste.
I went almost the whole month of July with tiny little green tomatoes (or none at all) on the plants because it was so cool, and then we had a couple of weeks of 90+ temps and they finally took off. But that meant that almost all of the tomatoes ripened at once, which left a lot of them rotting before I could get to them. I bought grafted tomatoes this year, and I’m unlikely to do it again; they weren’t any more productive than the volunteers that sprouted from last years crops. And I had as a result about 20 plants; which I never would have planted on purpose for just me. I got black krims, a lot sungold cherries, and a couple of beefsteak types as volunteers; I had planted pinapples, Cherokee purples (those were a complete failure, or they sent me the wrong plants), indigo roses, chocolate cherries, and Orange Whoppers. What can I say? I like colors.
Recipe below the fold, as written online with my changes in parentheses where applicable. I usually make only apple butter and crabapple jelly, but I’ve been a woman unchained with this Fresh Tech jelly maker. It makes small batches, which is perfect for me, and so far I’ve made about 50 1/2 pints of different types of jelly, including a merlot. My new favorite kitchen gadget!
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What’s going on in your gardens this week?
Tomato Basil Jam
Makes about 4 ½ pint jars· 4 cups ripe tomatoes, peeled (I use a cherry tomato mix, so I don’t peel them)
· ¼ cup lemon juice (I use ¼ cup mixed cider/balsamic vinegar)
· 3 tablespoons snipped fresh basil
· 3 cups sugar (OK, ick, I hate recipes that call for more sugar than fruit, so I use 1 rounded cup sugar)
· ¼ pat butter to reduce foaming
· 11 3/4ounce package powdered fruit pectin for lower-sugar recipes or 3 tablespoons powdered fruit pectin for low- or no-sugar recipes (I can get away with such low sugar because I use Pomona Pectin, which uses citrus calcium instead of sugar to make it jell. The result is sweet and savory and delish!)1. Finely chop tomatoes (you can seed and core if using large ones, I only core them). Measure 4 cups chopped tomatoes; place in a 6- to 8-quart stainless-steel, enamel, or nonstick heavy pot. Bring to boiling, stirring occasionally; reduce heat. Simmer, covered, for 5 minutes (up to 10 if you want the tomatoes to break down more, I like the jam a bit chunky). Stir in lemon juice and basil.
2. In a small bowl combine 1/4 cup of the sugar and the pectin; stir into tomato mixture. Bring to a full rolling boil, stirring constantly. Stir in the remaining 2 3/4 cups sugar. Return to a full rolling boil, stirring constantly. Boil hard for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and quickly skim off foam with a metal spoon.
3.Ladle hot jam into hot sterilized half-pint canning jars, leaving a 1/4-inch headspace. Wipe jar rims; adjust lids and screw bands.
4. Process filled jars in a boiling-water canner for 5 minutes (start timing when water returns to boiling). Remove jars from canner; cool on wire racks. Makes 5 half-pints. (And if you don’t want to hot process them, they make a fine refrigerator jelly).
I have to confess, I’ve only made this in my Fresh Tech Jelly maker. For the Fresh Tech with Pomona pectin: do not follow the normal directions of putting the pectin in first, instead put in the tomatoes, basil and vinegar or lemon juice, and 4 teaspoons of calcium water in and set Fresh Tech to “jam” (I add 2 extra minutes to the total). Mix 3 teaspoons of pectin into the sugar really well, and at the 4 minute mark when the machine beeps, add the sugar. I may give it a quick stir with a spatula at that point just to get the sugar mixed better. Put the lid on and get your jars ready because the jam will be done in about 18 minutes.
SiubhanDuinne
Nice to see the garden thread, even if a day past schedule! And that top picture, especially, was worth the 24-hour wait — something about the intense blue of the dish and the terrific variety of tomato colours, just beautiful.
raven
Does this mean I don’t have to go upstairs and logon to work today?
Linda Featheringill
@raven:
Dream on.
Doggie had to go outside at 4:30 this morning. I think she’s getting older and needs to go to the bathroom more frequently. I can certainly understand that.
In the garden, I have lots of big green onions. One day . . . .
raven
@Linda Featheringill: I moved to the couch at 3am when Lil Bit had one of her scratching fits!
SIA
@raven: I was just awakened from a deep sleep by a restless canine myself. Damn it Micky! I’m on vacay!
raven
Knuckle heads abound!
SIA
@SiubhanDuinne: What are you doing up? Or is this normal? You’re retired remember? :)
raven
Joe is raging against the ACA and the staff is doing a pretty good job of pushing back!
SIA
Morning Joe would be a great show without the Joe.
satby
I woke at my usual time 5:30, and the dogs were all quietly sleeping. Which was a nice change from all the incessant barking at shadows they were doing at 1:30 am.
raven
@SIA: Annie Lowrey, Ezra’s wife, is so smart but her voice is like fingernails on a chalkboard.
geg6
Okay, so I was offline most of last night and I wake up to see a beautuful young Native American woman was crowned Miss America. And apparently, in Real Murruka, she’s a terrorist and un-American.
Sometimes I hate this country.
SIA
@raven: There’s always a fatal flaw. Not as bad as Palin’s I hope. Who’s pushing back on the ACA?
SIA
@geg6: Crap, who said that?
abo gato
Back on topic, I got a Fresh Tech last year and the thing is the shiznit for anyone who likes to make jams and jellies. Yeah, it is a small batch producer, so I got a second Fresh Tech and have them going at alternate times. This will totally change your view of making this stuff as you no longer have to stand at the stove and stir, stir, stir.
MomSense
@raven:
I tried to fill in for you for two days last week and report on Morning Ho. I don’t know how you manage day after day. I startled my poor dog yelling at the tv.
raven
@SIA: Annie was quite good, Mika, Mike, Willie and even Halperin chipped in. Joe’s big rant is about “nobody” understands it and that bumbling president can’t explain shit like Ronnie could.
raven
@MomSense: It’s just my cross to bear.
satby
@abo gato: It is, isn’t it? I have never made so many different kinds of jam or jelly and it all comes out perfect. I think when I was hand stirring 1/2 my batches ended up as syrup just because I was so sick of standing over the hot pot stirring I’d convince myself that I saw it sheeting off the spoon way before it was.
JPL
@raven: I decided to punish myself and stream Morning Joe. In the olden days, the news media wouldn’t be spreading lies. It might be the President’s fault that people don’t understand the law, but when the repubs message gets more coverage, I’m not sure what he can do.
JPL
@SIA: Buzz Feed has more information on the Miss America winner. I guess twitter lit up with folks mentioning 9/11 and such.
satby
@JPL: This is my biggest (of many) complaints about the “news” media today. They used to correct outright falsehoods in real time when guests asserted untruths; now they just lies go unchallenged.
currants
@geg6: But…she’s Indian-American? Not Native American Indian, but sub-continent India Indian? And yes, still native American (so…yeah…).
MomSense
@raven:
I love that guitar solo at the beginning.
Maybe if the folks at the Morning Ho table hadn’t spent the entire ACA debate wishing the president would “focus on the economy” instead of health care.
I always loved their idea that the cost of health care had nothing to do with our economy
SIA
@JPL: thanks.
currants
Garden-wise: Anyone here grow limas? (I know someone in the Sunday crowd does, because that’s where I got the suggestion for planting Hendersons.) I could use tips on lima beans. How do you know when to pick them? I grew them the first time this year–kept waiting for the pods to fatten up a bit, and finally picked them all last night anyway. Some pods have full-sized beans, others have the almost-microscopic ones. And the difference in the pods is almost imperceptible.
Otherwise, pulled out all the old bean plants (the mice got most of my drying beans, except for the black beans I’d pulled earlier). Tons of green tomatoes, not many ripe ones left, and not much in the way of cherry tomatoes this year either, who knows why. But peppers galore, and decent eggplants, plenty of basil, celery root, and carrots. Second round of kales are started, need to get spinach and more chard in this week, and get the low hoop houses set up. Also started some rhubarb from seed–we’ll see how that turns out in the spring.
WereBear
@satby: Heck, their job is now to spread the lies.
Randy P
@geg6: I think she’s Indian-American (as in the country in Asia) not Native American. So brown-skinned.
How they go from that to “Arab” I’m not sure and don’t want to know.
Baud
@Randy P:
Same way they went from Hawaiian to Kenyan.
WereBear
@Randy P: I am convinced that all prejudice comes from inferiority; such people have to have their own “category” elevated while someone else’s gets lowered… in order to feel as though they have some worth.
Sick stuff.
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
My wife discovered Pomona’s Pectin this year and swears by it.
geg6
@SIA:
Apparently, half of twitter. The stupidest half.
Steeplejack
@raven:
Just what I needed to hear this morning! Some good blues, I mean. Not that I’m having any particular troubles. But just last night I was lying in bed thinking about Idylwild South and trying to remember which songs are on it. All the early Allman stuff runs together into one great album for me.
geg6
@Randy P:
Oh, she’s originally from Oklahoma or something, so I assumed Native American.
Kay
@MomSense:
Why don’t they explain it? They have hours and hours. They could allocate 3/4 of the time to analysis on how Obama hasn’t explained it and still have plenty of time to explain it.
After the law passed, they gave one another awards for reporting on it.
If “nobody” understands it, maybe they gave those out prematurely.
I love how they’ve completely shifted their job onto the President and political operatives, and it isn’t just conservatives. I was listening to Melissa Harris Perry and she announced that no one knows where Syria is. Hey Melissa! You’ve got that fancy platform. Put up a map! Their job as journalists is to report that no one knows anything.
My absolute favorite is when they discuss a poll that shows that no one knows anything. “75% of senior believe there are death panels in the ACA”. I’d be embarrassed to report that poll if I worked for a 24/7 news agency.
Baud
@Kay:
Ha. Perfect response. That’s the media today. “We could give you the information, but we don’t think you’d be interested.”
Geoduck
Grew pumpkins which spread all over the yard but didn’t produce much fruit, evidently because I let the vines spread too much. Still, harvested a couple of small sugar pumpkins yesterday, enough to make a pie. And it looks like I’ll get one jack o’ lantern sized pumpkin out of the deal as well. Next year I’ll be more methodical about this..
Randy P
@JPL: The pushback in Buzz Feed comments is encouraging. In the page of comments displayed when I loaded the Buzz Feed article, only one was idiotic, and even that one was anti-bigot.
Thank a liberal? WTF?
Perhaps it’s more of a cesspool if I display the 1000 or so older comments, but the ones I saw were universally in Nina Davuluri’s favor.
raven
@Steeplejack: I was lucky enough to see Duane twice
.
HeartlandLiberal
RE: grafted tomatoes, I paid almost $8 to try one as an experiement.An Indigo Rose variety. Out of 24 plants I put out, it was the slowest growing, scrawniest, under-producing runt failure of the lot.
I am planning to try growing from seed for all tomatoes next year. Usually, I buy from local nurseries, good quality. But I want more heirlooms, and I have two cold frames, so I am going for it. If I succeed, cost should be about the same, but better variety. And satisfaction.
My tomatoes are still producing a few, I picked a plastic grocery bag full a few days ago. I immediately filled a two quart blender with tomatoes, one carrot, one stalk celery, two small onions, a spoonful of Better Than Bouillon Vegetable base. Cooked till it was almost down thick enough to use as spaghetti sauce. Added evap milk and milk and made the best tomato soup of the year.
Kay
@Baud:
It’s a secret. Melissa Harris Perry knows where Syria is, but she’s not telling!
I’d even compromise. They could talk about how we don’t know anything, over a graphic explaining something.
I love the idea that people used to know things, too, but NOW they’re really dumb. How self-aggrandizing is that? “Twenty five year olds are morons, but people my age were so smart!”
It’s just nonsense. My father is ancient and he says no one knew anything during the Greatest Generation either. He prefers my son’s generation to both mine and his.
satby
@Kay: That’s EXACTLY right Kay! I’m an old geezer who remembers that maps showing the topic country underthe discussion were routinely shown during news reports as well as some contextual background in the area so that people could understand the news story. Al-Jazeera America is doing an ok job of that, but too many people won’t watch because of the scary Muslim name.
Baud
@Kay:
I think what we’re seeing tody is the marriage of a post-watergate scandal-driven press culture and ratings-driven big business. The cost per viewer of disseminating information is very high, and the process is too tedious for our media superstars to engage in.
MomSense
@Kay:
This. A million times, this.
They just repeat the same 20 minutes of BS content all day long. If they had a sense of shame they would feel like crap for whining about their failure to educate and blaming it on everyone else.
I worked at the hotel that served as the summer press HQ while in college so I used to see them up close for a month at a time in the summers. When they weren’t trying to get me to have drinks with them (the guys) or vying for the attentions and rides in the Bush cigarette boat (all of them!!) they were just gossiping. They never read anything, never prepared. Sometimes I would just start rumors to see if I could figure out how their loop worked.
MomSense
@Baud:
When I complained about the general stupidity of the journalists, one salty photographer for one of the wire services explained to me that when the president’s helicopter lifts off all the photo journalists and cameramen just aim their cameras at the helicopter and get the whole thing on tape/film because the sole purpose of the whole white house press pool post JFK’s assassination is to be there should something bad happen in order to capture the moment. He said everything else was just decoration.
Kay
@MomSense:
I don’t think presidential speeches would work for the health care law anyway. We haven’t had a giant piece of “kitchen table” legislation like this in decades, so I don’t think anyone knows what would work, but an overview isn’t really helpful to people (in my experience in the law office) because they have such specific situations. They’re impatient with the big picture (which is also true of law in general, BTW, no one cares about the framework, they want to know how it applies to them).
It really is one at a time. Still, the death panels thing? Media’s fault. That’s on them. They promoted Palin way past when her poll numbers tanked and she had no relevance even to political punditry. They did that because she’s good for an outrageous statement. In the course of doing that, they misled tens of millions of elderly people. That’s what happened. I watched it happen.
Steeplejack
@raven:
Yeah, I saw him a few times too. And I visited his grave in Macon when I was visiting a friend there. His grave is near that of “Elizabeth Jones Reed.” Yes, that one.
bemused
The tomato-basil jam sounds yummy. Would it work as well in freezer jam?
Randy P
Ignorant botany question. This is prompted by the discussion of starting from seed in comments above, and the fact that one local market is selling heirloom tomatoes. It’s making me think of collecting some seeds from our next purchase.
So here’s my ignorant question. If we start from seed, we do it in spring. What does nature do? Wouldn’t fruit that falls on the ground plant itself in fall and then have to winter over? Why can’t we start plants in fall?
satby
@currants: Peppers and eggplants galore make me think it got a bit too hot for the tomato blossoms to set into fruit. Let the green ones go as long as you can, and if a frost threatens just pull them all and put them in paper bags to ripen. I’ve had garden tomatoes last into November some years that way.
Citizen Scientist
I harvested what will probably be the last large batch of tomatoes (black krims, eva purple balls, sicilianos, large red cherries) and made a few more jars of sauce from them. Dug out the rest of our potatoes, cleared out some old plants, and planted the fall crops (fennel, bok choy, kale, broccoli rabe, endive) last weekend. Gonna plant garlic and shallots in the near future. Glad I can just let things grow for a while and not have to actively maintain the garden too much except for a bit of water if we don’t get some rain soon.
SiubhanDuinne
@SIA: Had some insomnia, but I eventually went back to sleep for a couple of hours. Just woke up, in fact.
currants
@satby: Oh, I had not thought of that–but you are absolutely right. We had a horrendous spell of very hot humid weather in late July (we have one AC, which is normally sufficient if it’s cool at night as the house has great ventilation/window circulation, and we close up during the day. By the end of this hot spell, it was mid-eighties INSIDE, and still felt like a huge relief when you came in from outdoors).
I will follow your suggestion — they won’t rot, I gather?
Thank you!