I had the privilege of teaching the tomato canning class for the current Master Food Preserver students. I was assisted by the wise Gary Delk (the tomato king) and the very helpful Katrina Kirkeby.
The class was held on a Wednesday so I went to the farmers’ market on Tuesday and came home with four boxes of tomatoes purchased from Orange County Produce. They told me that I could purchase a 25 pound box of tomatoes for $16. Sounded like a great deal to me. When I actually weighed the boxes when I got home, I found that they had given me 36 pound boxes! A lot of tomatoes!!
I topped and sliced and roasted tomatoes so the class could make tomato sauce to can. Thanks, Cara, for your assistance with all the slicing. This reduced the liquid in the tomatoes in advance thus eliminating the need to cook down the sauce in class which would have been too time consuming.