Tomato disasters and successes

If you recall, we harvested two beds – upwards of 130 pounds – of a type of meaty paste tomato called Federle.

Because the vast majority of these tomatoes were green when we harvested them just ahead of the first frost, I layered them in boxes with a banana on each layer to provide ethylene gas. This would allow them to ripen. We set these boxes on a layer of plastic (to protect the carpet) and wrapped them in mosquito netting (to keep the fruit flies out).

However I got busy during the interim while they were ripening. Among much else, I took that fast trip south to see my parents and Younger Daughter. By the time I got around to cracking open the boxes, well ... let's just say many of the tomatoes had progressed beyond ripe into rotten. Grrrr.

The top layers were in great shape.

But the farther down I went, the worse it got.

I was so mad at myself for wasting so many tomatoes. In the end, the best I could do was pluck out the tomatoes that were still usable, and put them in a tub.

As for the rest ... well, we had to use towels and tubs and other emergency procedures to get those soaked and falling-apart boxes out of the house and into the yard. I was VERY glad I had put down plastic beneath the boxes to protect the carpet, which emerged unscathed.

I spent days beating myself up for this debacle. So many tomatoes, wasted!

The rotten tomatoes went into the waste pile.

I turned my attention back to the usable tomatoes. Because so many of them had been covered in mushy tomato slime, I actually washed them all.

After washing them, I re-packed the tomatoes back into the tub, but lined it with towels to absorb moisture.

Then I had to fetch down my food strainer from where it had been stored in the barn. I haven't used the strainer in a long time – certainly not since we moved – so it was predictably filthy. I gave it a good washing.

Also – knowing I would need it – I washed a large bucket.

Then I set up the food strainer.

Part of this set-up included putting a towel on the floor beneath. I learned from experience this is critical.

Straining tomatoes is messy work.

But there's no finer way to make a beautiful purée. Here the tomatoes are in the hopper...

...and here is the resulting purée.

Periodically I dumped the container of purée into the large bucket.

By the time all the tomatoes were processed, the kitchen was a mess. Such is life.

The next step was to bag up and freeze the purée.

I filled five gallon bags with purée, though the actual volume was probably more like four gallons.

I laid the bags of purée flat in the chest freezer until they froze, and then I stacked them more neatly.

After all was said and done, my apron was a disaster. I am brutally hard on aprons.

I laid the apron flat and sprayed it thoroughly with stain remover, then washed it, which helped a lot.

The next step in the tomato journey will be to make tomato sauce out of the purée, something I usually do in January or February. This consists of putting the purée in a large pot nested double-boiler-style into a larger pot, and cooking it down into sauce (the process usually takes about three days per batch). After it's thick enough for my satisfaction, I'll can it up.

So that's a summary of my tomato disasters and successes. Let's hope I'm a little more attentive to our unripe tomatoes next year.