This is a delicious mixture of stewed tomatoes flavoured with fragrant celery, green pepper and onion.
You could use it as a time-saving base for casseroles, soups, rice dishes, pasta sauces, as well as for many Creole recipes.
This mixture is pressure canned. See also: Minnesota Mix for water-bath and steam canners
This recipe is from the Ball / Bernardin Complete Book.
The recipe
Jar size choices: Either half-litre (1 US pint) OR 1 litre (1 US quart)
Processing method: Pressure canning only
Yield: 7 x half-litre (pint) jars or 3 x litre (US quart) jars
Headspace: 3 cm (1 inch)
Processing pressure: 10 lbs (69 kPa) weighted gauge, 11 lbs (76 kpa) dial gauge (adjust pressure for your altitude when over 300 metres / 1000 feet.)
Processing time: Half-litres (pints) 15 minutes; litres (quarts) 20 minutes.
Stewed Tomatoes and Vegetables
Ingredients
- 4 kg tomatoes (Measured after after peeling and quartering. 16 cups / 8 ¾ lbs)
- 125 celery (finely chopped. 1 cup / 4 oz / 1 large stalk)
- 75 g onion (coarsely diced. Measured after prep. ½ cup / 3 oz / 1 medium-sized onion)
- 50 g green pepper (coarsely diced. Measured after prep. ¼ cup / 1.5 oz / half a medium-sized green pepper)
- 1 tablespoon sugar (OR few drops liquid stevia)
- 2 teaspoons salt (OR non-bitter, non-clouding salt sub)
- lemon juice (bottled OR citric acid)
Instructions
- Wash tomatoes. Peel them.
- Core the tomatoes (no need to seed) and quarter them.
- Put tomatoes into a pot 6 litres (quarts) or larger.
- Add everything from the celery down to and including the salt (OR salt sub.)
- Cover the pot, and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking to the bottom of the pot.
- Lower to a strong simmer, and let simmer covered for another 10 minutes or until vegetables have softened.
- Ladle into jars, distributing solids and liquid equally.
- Leave 3 cm (1 inch) headspace.
- Acidify the jars (see below.) This is a mandatory safety step.
- Debubble, adjust headspace.
- Wipe jar rims.
- Put lids on.
- Processing pressure: 10 lbs (69 kPa) weighted gauge, 11 lbs (76 kpa) dial gauge (adjust pressure for your altitude when over 300 metres / 1000 feet.)
- Processing time: half-litre (US pint) jars for 15 minutes OR 1 litre (US quart) jars for 20 minutes.
Nutrition
Acidify the jars
Acidify the jars by adding to them either lemon juice or citric acid.
- Half-litre (1 US pint) jar: one tablespoon bottled lemon juice or ¼ teaspoon citric acid; OR
- 1 litre (1 US quart) jar: two tablespoons of bottled lemon juice or ½ teaspoon of citric acid.
Recipe notes
- You will want to start with about 4.25 kg / 9 ½ lbs of unprepped tomato.
- The acidification is important, do not skip. The short pressure canning time combined with the acidification shows that the pressure canning is just being used as a way to speed up the processing. By itself without the acidification, the processing time might not be sufficient.
- The quantity of added veg may seem skimpy, but it actually works out to be a generous amount. Do not increase the amount of onion, celery or pepper, as increasing them will affect the pH balance and thus the safety of the product.
- Don’t forget to wash all veg before cutting into them.
Reference information
How to pressure can.
When pressure canning, you must adjust the pressure for your altitude.
More information about Salt-Free Canning in general.
Storage life of home canned goods
Recipe source
Kingry, Judi and Lauren Devine. Ball / Bernardin Complete Book of Home Preserving. Toronto: Robert Rose. 2015. Page 378.
Modifications: none.
Nutrition
Regular version with sugar and salt
Per 250 ml (1 cup / 8 oz):
- 59 calories, 355 mg sodium
Sugar and salt-free version
Per 250 ml (1 cup / 8 oz):
- 56 calories, 21 mg sodium
* Nutrition info provided by https://caloriecount.about.com
Debbie
How long to hot water bath these tomatoes?
Healthy Canning
Hi Deb, the directions do mention several times that this recipe is for pressure canning. If you don’t have a pressure canner, you could freeze the mixture. Or, consider this recipe instead which is for water-bath canning: https://www.healthycanning.com/minnesota-mix
Dawn
Is it possible to sub Zucchini in for the celery? Also can I leave out sugar or use splenda instead?
/
Healthy Canning
It is fine to omit the sweetener or use an alternative one. If you want to use zucchini, use this recipe instead which has been tested for it (zucchini squishes up during canning and presents special challenges because of that): https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can_03/tomato_okra_zucchini.html
Linda
Can tomatoes be canned using a cold bath without adding salt and sugar?
Healthy Canning
Tomato products require processing in either a hot water bath canner, a steam canner, or a pressure canner (there are only a very few recipes developing for pressure canning tomato products.)