Practical Homesteading

Category: Fall

  • The Tomato Product I Use Most: Canning Tomato Juice for Winter

    The Tomato Product I Use Most: Canning Tomato Juice for Winter

    By the end of tomato season, there is always a moment when I look at the kitchen counter and wonder how we got here.

    At first, the ripe tomatoes feel like a reward. The first few become BLTs, tomato sandwiches, chopped tomatoes beside eggs, and slices eaten straight over the sink with salt.

    Then the bowls begin filling.

    There are tomatoes on the counter, tomatoes waiting in the garden, tomatoes that need to be picked before the weather turns, and tomatoes ripening faster than we can possibly eat them fresh.

    Sooooo many tomatoes!

    It is a good problem to have. But a tomato glut still asks the same practical question: what will you do with all of them before they go soft?

    For our family, the answer is often tomato juice. This is how I preserve tomato juice from our garden each year.

    Why I can tomato juice every year

    I make sauce too, but tomato juice may be the single most useful thing I preserve from our garden.

    We use it for:

    • Bloody Mary mix, which we make alcoholic or nonalcoholic
    • Tomato juice gently warmed with a little salt
    • Chili
    • Soups and stews
    • A base for sauce when I want to cook it down later
    • Any meal that needs a little garden-grown tomato flavor

    A shelf of tomato juice may not look as exciting as jars of salsa or thick spaghetti sauce, but it earns its space in our pantry. It is useful, flexible, and easy to turn into a meal when the garden feels very far away.

    How I make tomato juice

    I start with ripe tomatoes from the garden, picking through them carefully and setting aside any that are damaged, overly soft, or not worth preserving.

    After washing and trimming them, I heat the tomatoes until they are soft enough to run through my screw press juicer, which separates the juice from the seeds and skins.

    I have had this press for 10 years, and while I have my complaints—it is annoyingly hard to clean, and it leaks—I have not found a better setup yet. If you have a better system, tell me in the comments.

    My kids absolutely love to help: my daughter stamps down the tomato mush, and my son turns the screw-press crank.

    Here’s our setup for making tomato juice with our hand crank screw press juicer. I tend to make tomato juice outside, weather permitting, because of the messy nature of the project. My son is helping here, my daughter is nearby, fighting to use the red stamper.

    I send the pulp through twice because I want to get as much juice as is practical before moving on to the next step. Then I heat the juice, ladle it into jars, and preserve it for the pantry.

    My tomato juice canning notes
    I add 1/2 teaspoon citric acid powder to each quart jar. I also add 1 teaspoon of salt per quart for flavor. Then I fill the jars with hot tomato juice and process quart jars in a boiling-water canner for 40 minutes. This is the process I use in my southeastern Wisconsin kitchen, at roughly 900 feet above sea level. Processing time depends on altitude, so always consult a current tested preservation source for your location.

    Water bath canning, I plan to post more about the process of water bath canning in the future!

    The National Center for Home Food Preservation and Wisconsin Extension recommend acidifying tomatoes because their natural acidity can vary. Their guidance specifies 1/2 teaspoon of citric acid per quart for acidification. For tomato juice, use current tested processing directions that match your jar size, product, and altitude.

    Food-preservation note
    This post shares my household process and the ways we use our tomatoes. It is not a substitute for an up-to-date tested canning recipe. Use sound, ripe tomatoes, follow current Extension or National Center for Home Food Preservation guidance, and adjust processing time for your altitude.

    When I want a thicker sauce

    I also make and preserve tomato sauce, especially when I know I want something ready for pasta, pizza, or another meal that benefits from a thicker base.

    This year, I have been experimenting with a small shortcut before I press the tomatoes. After heating them until they are soft and mushy, I use my soup ladle almost like a little weir, collecting some of the clear tomato water that rises around the cooked pulp.

    I set that watery liquid aside rather than adding it to the sauce, leaving me with a thicker tomato base before I even begin pressing. That means less time simmering sauce on the stove and less heat filling the kitchen during an already warm stretch of late summer.

    It is not a fancy tool or a perfectly measured process. It is simply a small kitchen experiment that helps me work with the harvest more efficiently.

    Because tomato sauce is thicker than juice, I follow a current tested tomato-sauce recipe when I can it rather than using the processing directions for tomato juice.

    Turning leftover pulp into tomato powder

    After I have run the tomatoes through the screw press twice, I am left with pulp.

    I hate to waste anything that still has flavor after the work of growing, harvesting, washing, heating, and pressing all those tomatoes. So I spread the remaining pulp in my dehydrator and dry it until it is thoroughly dry and crisp.

    Tomato pulp from the screw press, which I dry in the dehydrator and grind into tomato powder.

    Once it is dry, I grind it into tomato powder.

    Tomato powder is one of those pantry ingredients that does not look like much but makes all kinds of food better. It adds concentrated tomato flavor and umami without adding the liquid that tomato juice or sauce would bring.

    I especially like it in jambalaya, but it is useful anywhere I want tomato flavor without thinning out the dish. I also add it to soups, rice dishes, seasoning blends, and sauces when something needs a little more depth.

    The garden gives me tomatoes. The press gives me juice. The dehydrator gives me powder. By the end, I have used nearly every useful part of the harvest.

    For a kitchen-friendly reference with preparation, temperature, drying time, storage, and rehydration charts, see my Garden Drying Guide. Thank you for supporting my mission to help aspiring homesteaders gain the knowledge they need.

    Get the Guide Here for $5

    When freezing is an option

    Sometimes, especially toward the end of the season, I have too many other kitchen projects happening at once. Yesterday, for instance, I was making pumpkin muffins for the kids to take to school, venison jerky, fruit leather, and another batch of hot sauce. I did not have the bandwidth for one more preservation project.

    So I cleaned the tomatoes I harvested and placed them in a gallon-size freezer bag to handle later. They will be softer when they thaw, but they will still be perfect for cooked sauces, soups, and juice. I talk more about freezing tomatoes here: How to Freeze Peppers, Tomatoes, Zucchini, and Berries for Later.

    Freezing tomatoes for a future winter project.

    This winter, when I have more time, I will pull them out and turn that frozen harvest into juice, sauce, or soup.

    Too much garden produce arriving at once?
    My free Grow What You’ll Use planner helps you decide what to eat fresh, freeze, dehydrate, store, share, or use up this week—before the harvest gets ahead of you.

    Get the Free Planner

    What I preserve most

    I have tried other tomato projects too, including ketchup. But most years, I come back to the things our family actually reaches for: juice, sauce, and powder.

    The work is still significant. Tomato season means sticky counters, splatters on the stove, jars cooling on towels, and the smell of cooked tomatoes settling into the kitchen.

    But when snow is on the ground, I can open a jar for chili, warm some for my husband with salt, or reach for tomato powder when a pot of jambalaya needs more depth. Those are the things that make the work feel worth it.

    The best preservation project is not always the most impressive one. It is the one your household will actually use.

    A question for readers

    What tomato product does your household use most in winter? Do you can sauce, make juice, dry tomato powder, freeze tomatoes, or preserve something else entirely?

    If this post helped you think through your own tomato glut, I would be grateful if you would like and share it with another gardener, homesteader, or friend whose kitchen counters are overflowing right now.

    Read More Here: How to Make Lacto-Fermented Dill Pickles in a Crock

  • From Garden to Market: Bringing Garden Heat to Kekoskee River Day

    From Garden to Market: Bringing Garden Heat to Kekoskee River Day

    A bottle of hot sauce does not look like much on its own.

    It is glass, a label, a bright red-orange sauce, and a small collection of ingredients. But when that sauce began as peppers growing in our garden, then became an idea, then a batch fermenting on my counter, then something I tested, bottled, labeled, and set out on a table for strangers to taste—it felt like more than a bottle of hot sauce.

    It felt like the beginning of something.

    Last weekend, we brought Garden Heat hot sauce, maple syrup, and homemade baked goods to Kekoskee River Day, a small community event in Kekoskee, Wisconsin. It was the kind of day built around food, conversation, familiar faces, and the pleasure of being outside near the river.

    I was nervous. I was excited. I was not sure what people would think.

    But I packed up the table, arranged the bottles, set out the maple syrup and baked goods, and waited to see whether anyone would stop.

    They did.

    A small-town market day

    Kekoskee River Day was the kind of event that reminds me why local gatherings matter.

    People walked through River Park, visited with neighbors, watched the activity around the river, and enjoyed a little piece of community life. I met people who wanted to talk food, gardens, cooking, hot sauce, maple syrup, tomato preservation, and all the practical questions that come up when we are trying to make the most of what grows around us. I also caught up with neighbors, friends, and everyone in between.

    There is something different about handing someone a product you made yourself.

    They can see the label. They can ask how it tastes. They can ask what is in it. They can tell you whether they like it. They can take it home and make it part of their own meals.

    That kind of feedback is more valuable than a guess made from my own kitchen table.

    Bringing Garden Heat into the world

    Garden Heat began with peppers from our homestead and a desire to make something useful from what we grow.

    It is a lacto-fermented hot sauce, made in small batches and tested before bottling. The flavor is bright and garden-forward, with a slow-building kick that tends to arrive at the end.

    One of the funniest lessons from the event was realizing that “mild” is relative.

    A few people said Garden Heat was mostly mild, with a pleasant little kick at the end. Others found it far too spicy. Living in Wisconsin, I have learned that a person’s definition of spicy can vary wildly from one table to the next.

    That is not a bad thing. It is useful information.

    It tells me that Garden Heat may be approachable for people who enjoy a little warmth in their food while still offering enough of a kick for people who want to know they are eating hot sauce. It also gives me better language for describing it to future customers: a garden-fresh sauce with a slow-building kick.

    People asked what they could put it on, too. My answer is almost anything that could use a little bright, garden-grown heat: eggs, tacos, grilled meat, chili, soup, breakfast potatoes, or a sandwich that needs waking up.

    An unexpected visitor

    Kekoskee River Day was especially memorable because an episode of Mad Dog & Merrill’s Midwest Grill’n was filmed nearby. The event itself included local vendors, food, entertainment, and the show’s taping in River Park.

    I was set up near the activity, which added a little extra excitement to the day. Then Mad Dog stopped by my table and purchased a bottle of Garden Heat.

    I am not pretending that one sale makes a business. But after all the growing, chopping, fermenting, testing, bottling, labeling, worrying, and hoping, it was a small moment that meant a great deal.

    Someone known for food and grilling saw my little bottles on the table and decided one was worth taking home.

    That is the kind of encouragement I will remember.

    During filming, Mad Dog & Merrill mentioned several times that the Kekoskee episode is expected to premiere on Sunday, October 11. If you watch local Wisconsin television, you may see me in my “Easily Excited by Pickles” shirt, acting a little too enthusiastic in the audience.

    What the day taught me

    I did not sell out, and that is okay. I did make sales, including seven bottles of Garden Heat and several jars of maple syrup. But the most valuable part of the day was watching people stop, ask questions, taste the sauce, share their opinions, and talk about what they were growing and preserving at home.

    The event reminded me that a first local market is not only about whether every product disappears from the table. It is about paying attention.

    I learned what people are curious about.

    I learned how people describe the heat level.

    I learned which products draw people over.

    I learned that baked goods can make a table feel welcoming.

    And I heard a question more than once that has stayed with me: What do you do when you have too many tomatoes?

    That question became the inspiration for another post, because this is how I hope this little project grows. A conversation at a local event becomes a useful idea. A useful idea becomes a blog post. A blog post may help another gardener or cook facing the same problem.

    That is community, too.

    I came home with less product on the table and something more useful than a perfect sellout: proof that people were willing to stop, taste, ask questions, and take a small piece of our homestead home with them.

    Garden Heat is still a small experiment. But it is becoming a real one.

    It is part of a larger hope we have for this place: to grow food, make useful things, share what we learn, and build something our family can keep developing over time.

    For now, that looks like peppers in the garden, maple trees tapped in the spring, bottles of sauce on a table beside a river, and the people who pause long enough to say, “Tell me about this.”

    That is a beginning worth celebrating.

    Local availability: Garden Heat is a small-batch, lacto-fermented hot sauce made from peppers grown on our homestead. If you are local and interested in trying a bottle—or purchasing our maple syrup—please send me a message.