My eyes are still wet with tears and I can’t believe I am making myself write this post.
I had a huge bucket of Roma tomatoes from the Urban Farm I have been planning to can into marinara sauce. I waited a week for them to ripen to the perfect level. You don’t want them overripe, but I wanted them really red.
Finally, they were ready.
I got them all prepped yesterday around lunch time. They were all dipped into hot water for 30 seconds, then thrown into a cold sink of water. I carefully peeled them, cored them, and gently set them in bowls on the counter. I covered them with plastic wrap to keep fruit flies off until I was ready to use them. The plan was to make the sauce last night, but things got busy and time ran out.
This morning I got my two big stock pots ready to go. The onions had softened and I carefully measured all of my many spices, honey, and goodies to flavor the sauce. All that was left to add were the glorious tomatoes.
I approached the bowls and at first thought the sunlight was reflecting on them. As I got closer though, it looked like flour had been dusted on them. But it wasn’t flour. No, sadly it wasn’t. It was mold.
Three huge bowls of perfectly ripened tomatoes, the perfect Romas for sauce, had all completely molded in less than 24 hours of prepping them.
No, you can’t cook with moldy tomatoes. Cooking doesn’t kill every kind of mold. I cried while I brought them into the backyard, bowl by bowl, and threw them into the compost pile. Worms are now eating the world’s most perfectly ripen tomatoes, with a slightly moldy undertone.
Lesson learned: only prep your fruits and veggies for canning when you are planning to immediately can them. F@#%.
I am so sorry, having had a few canning failures myself, I can completely relate to your tears.
Oh no! What a bummer. π
Ugh. I feel for you. I’m thinking back to the time I left my first (and, come to think of it , last!) hard cheese on the counter to “age”, only to find my beloved dog had somehow snagged it and devoured it. I only found the scattered, mangled chunks on the floor. I cried and screamed so hard my boyfriend heard me from across a ten acre field. Not good.
I’m so sorry that happened Renee! (I hate when I plan to do something with food and get distracted to the point the food goes bad. No fun!
Anyway, I wanted to pass on another way to process your fresh romas. My Italian mother-in-law bought me a food mill and works wonders to peel and seed tomatoes so that I don’t have to boil and peel them one by one. All you have to do is cut the tomatoes in half, put them cut side down in a big pot on medium heat, cover the pot with a lid, and check every couple minutes. I recommend stirring the tomatoes around as the ones on the bottom soften so that they all steam and soften equally. Once all tomatoes are easy to mash with a wooden spoon dump them into the food mill (with a bowl underneath) and grind them up. You’ll be amazed! Once the tomatoes are ground up all you’re left with is the seeds and dry skins in the bottom of the food mill. (I composte these.) I then either proceed to make my sauce directly from the mash, or I freeze the puree until I want it. My basic sauce consists of about 2 pounds fresh romas, 1/2 a chopped onion, some salt, olive oil, and basil leaves. I cover the bottom of a medium pot in olive oil, heat the oil, and add the onion. Once the onion is translucent I add the sauce, turn the heat down to 2, add a few sprigs of fresh basil and salt to taste. The sauce usually takes about an hour to cook down. Sometimes I add a touch of baking soda if the sauce is too acidic. Once the sauce is done you can either cool and freeze in a zip lock or eat with your boiled pasta. I hope that helps!
Oh, that *is* sad! I always comfort myself at times like this by thinking about how compost also needs good food to go into it, and nothing is wasted….okay, you didn’t need to do all that work in order to make good compost, but still! You’ll have a good story to tell over the years, though.
That really, really sucks. I’m so sorry! I failed this year with one of my batches of tomatoes too. I stupidly used a recipe for tomato sauce I had never tasted, roasting a half-bushel of perfect Romas, red peppers, garlic and onions. It was delicious until I added a 3/4 cup of balsamic (as per the recipe), which I normally love, but completely ruined the beautiful flavour of the sauce. It was inedibly vinegary — what a waste!
So now we know — do not prep tomatoes in advance, and use a tried-and-true recipe. There’s always next year, right?
Thanks for the love guys. The farm director took pity on me and gave me another bucket to can. This time I won’t screw it up!
I’m so sorry for you – I’ve learned quite a few lessons the hard way this year as well! I bought a roma food mill this year which has totally paid for itself in applesauce and tomato sauce. You don’t have to do ANYTHING except lightly steam the apples. You throw the whole fruit in and turn the crank. It miraculously separates skin, seeds, core from good stuff which plops down into your bowl and you just throw it in the pan. It’s the coolest thing ever, next to my grain grinder, ice cream maker and food dehydrator.
Hugs,
Annette