Nothing better than opening a jar of tomatoes when it is cold and snowy outside.

Take your wife over to the Harvest forum. Lots of experts with lots a good advice regarding safe canning. She will be convinced.

Good luck,

Gary

I can dozens of quarts of tomatoes every summer, and we eat them all, safely. They're one of the easiest things to can, safety-wise.

If you use the UDSA methods (link below), there's no risk.

Like with many things, the process can be intimidating at first, but with practice gets much easier. Plus, home-canned tomatoes beat store-bought hands-down! We use them all winter long in soups, chilis, stews, casseroles, braises, winter salsa. . .

One summer I didn't do much other canning, but I made time to can my tomatoes!

Leigh

Here is a link that might be useful: USDA guide to canning tomatoes

Been canning tomatoes since i was a kid, and believe me, my mother was nowhere near as picky as i am about cleaning and sterilizing every tool and surface, and we never got a bad jar.

Oh yeah, that's one of my favorite memories, opening a jar of tomatoes in the middle of winter, usually chilled, inhaling that still fresh smell, and chowing those babies straight from the jar....mmmmmmmmmm (drool)..i even put them on salads, might be a little squishy, but they're still light-years better than those fauxmatoes they sell in the stores in winter.

Like aberwacky said, they're one of the easiest and safest things to can, the acidity makes up for any little lapses in technique.

There's so much info on line, but i still reach for my Ball Blue Book of canning, freezing and preservation, I think it's about $15 on Amazon, but you could likely find one used for a little bit o' nothin'.

Last but not least, it's almost a Zen thing for me, the ritual of gathering, washing, scalding, peeling, packing...listening for the "ping" when the lids seal, the pretty jars cooling in neat rows on towels, and lined up on the shelf like jewels with all the other canned treasures...

Just do it!!

Question: Is canning better than freezing?

I generally take my tomatoes and cook them down to about about half the volume in a pot for tomato sauce and store them in freezer bags. Or ,I take the whole tomatoes and cut them in half and bake them down in the oven on cookie sheets and freeze the whole lot. I feel this conserves space. I have not tried canning whole tomatoes and wondering primarily about the flavor differences.

Sauce and juice both freeze nicely, i do that sometimes when i don't have time to can properly, and frozen whole tomatoes i'm sure would be just fine for cooking. I like to freeze green and red peppers, and roasted red peppers, too.

Seriously, home-canned tomatoes are a whole different product than the store-bought, or as they say here in Amishville, "boughten" canned tomatoes. The aroma and taste are as close as you can get to fresh out of season.
THey also keep much longer than frozen would.

I've used canned tomato sauce that was five years old, and it tasted pretty darn good. I went on the Atkins diet the fall after i canned about 70 quarts of sauce, and pretty much avoided pasta for a few years, so i gave away alot, and the few i had ended up in the back of the cupboard...i made pizza sauce out of most of it, and everyone raved.

I do freeze tomatoes - whole ones. Just wash and put into a zip-loc bag and toss in the freezer. To peel, take out of freezer and hold the tomato under the running cold water faucet and the skin peels right off. That's for when I don't have time to can whole tomatoes or make juice, the latter being my favorite, or if there's just a few ripe ones so no point in getting out the canner for them. And yes, you can freeze sauce, peeled tomatoes, whatever - if you have the freezer space and that's a big if for me. Also canned stuff keeps longer.
I do follow the USDA recs and those on the Harvest forum and add citric acid to the jar - just a smidgeon. And I also add hot pepper to the juice since I like it with a bit of heat.

I have never canned, but I did a lot of apricot preserving in Mason jars, back when we had an apricot tree. Perhaps if you use jars rather than cans, your wife might have some of her anxiety relieved because she can see the contents then.

I suppose you may be right, that it's something you have to grow up with. I have family members that won't eat vegetables straight out of my garden because they might be dirtier than the plastic-wrapped veggies at the store. Nutty, isn't it?

Millions of jars of home canned tomatoes, stewed tomatoes, tomato sauce, tomato juice, tomato relish, tomato chutney, tomato pickles, and tomato etc. are consumed annually. 200+ of them by me and my family. ;) But if she won't go for canning get her to at least agree to freezing them. It's the next best thing.

doof - because they might be dirtier than the plastic-wrapped veggies at the store Even after all the contaminated food reports and e-coli outbreaks this past 6 months they still prefer the grocery store stuff??? Go figure!

Dave ~ who had his first 2007 bowl of wilted lettuce, spinach, and green onion salad from his own garden tonight :-D

Dave, yeah. And they prefer McDonalds to home-grilled hamburgers. And Kraft Macaroni and Cheese to home-made macaroni with real cheese. I could go on. I mentioned before the anecdote about my raspberries -- my daughter wasn't that enthusiastic about my raspberries and told me to try growing "the blue kind." I tried to tell her there were no such thing as blue raspberries, but she rolls her eyes and goes, "Of course there are! I always get blue raspberry Slushies at the movies. You must not know anything about raspberries!"

a note on freezing: after losing everything in my freezers during a week-long power outage a few years ago, I got back into canning.

Freezing is convenient, but it does take up space, and if the power goes, so does your food.

I do freeze lots of veggies (broccoli, greens, squash, etc.), but I prefer my tomatoes canned. They don't have to be thawed and so are ready to use immediately.

Plus, seeing them lined up on the shelves makes me feel good! Like someone said, they look like jewels.

Leigh

Last year was so pathetic for us we didn't have anything to can, but the year before was a bumper crop. We have 1 jar left of what was canned in 2005 and every time I think that maybe we should use it, I stop and think, "But it's the LAST CAN and when it's gone there won't be any more!" That was the last summer my Mom was with us and I just can't bring myself to make that last jar disappear. But we did use the other jars all winter this past winter and they were really yummy. Being 2 years old didn't hurt the taste one bit. I say "Go for it" too!! :^)

I plan on trying tomato canning this year. I've done jams and pickled items before, but not tomatoes. With 19 plants, I'm sure I'll have maters coming out my ears! Get the current Ball canning books for your wife so you have up-to-date information on how to do it.

I just got the books last month from Amazon and have been reading through them to find out what I'll need to prepare for. It looks easy enough, albeit time consuming, for a beginner to do. I'll be happy to try it together with your wife - long distance, of course!

I also plan on sun drying some. I have done that before with Black Plum and Sungold and they turned out really good. If you don't have dry summers, maybe you can consider a dehydrator to save some harvest.

Elaine

On the lost food note.
We do 3 pigs a year for our Family. Last year two weeks after the pork came home from the butcher the Wife opens the freezer and is about knocked over by the smell!!!

Yep a 4 year old freezer craped out and we lost about 4 bananna boxes full of prime pork!!! The new frezzer has a alarm on it!!

Hi Everyone!! Thanks so much for all of the feedback. I really appreciate the input. Now it's time for me to take all of the feedback and information I've received and discuss with my wife.

As a very young boy, I also remember my grandmother canning pickles as well and she also made homemade dinner rolls that would melt in your mouth.

Great memories!!!

Jay

my wife that it is perfectly safe to "can" tomatoes. I'm not referring to the process but the finished product...

brazosvalleygardener, the "process" is the key to the finished product. The thing with canning tomatoes is to knock down the protein enzymes that make the solids and liquids want to separate. This must be done before the actual "canning." This is easily accomplished by simmering for ~20 minutes. When the "froth" mostly goes away, the product is ready to be processed in canning procedure.

Esp with tomato juice, if you do not do this before canning it, it is a recipe for failure.

Reg

Over the years, I helped my mom can many jars of tomatoes and tomato juice. The juice was runny and nasty, but we had to drink it anyway. My finger tips still tingle in pain with the thought of skinning those tomatoes with the hot water method. The worst thing was the smell, in that hot kitchen in August when canning. Just thinking about it makes me gag. I will never can tomatoes again.

Yes, you can can tomatoes safely! I can a tomato basil sauce every year from the tomatoes and basil grown in my garden. I would go to the Harvest forum on the Gardenweb and call out LindaLou or Reading Lady to ask for advice on canning tomatoes safely.

Here's some links from the Harvest forum about canning tomatoes.

Here is a link that might be useful: Canning tomatoes

The latest Ball Blue Book is at Walmart for about $6.00.