Stewed Tomatoes and Vegetables

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.

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Stewed Tomatoes and Vegetables

A delicious tomato and vegetable mixed from Ball and Bernardin.

Course Side Dish

Cuisine American

Keyword Tomatoes

Prep Time 30 minutes

Cook Time 1 hour

Total Time 1 hour 30 minutes

Yield 7 half-litre (pint) jars or 3 x litre (US quart) jars

Calories 59 kcal

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)

Metric - US Customary

Instructions

1. Wash tomatoes. Peel them.
2. Core the tomatoes (no need to seed) and quarter them.
3. Put tomatoes into a pot 6 litres (quarts) or larger.
4. Add everything from the celery down to and including the salt (OR salt sub.)
5. Cover the pot, and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking to the bottom of the pot.
6. Lower to a strong simmer, and let simmer covered for another 10 minutes or until vegetables have softened.
7. Ladle into jars, distributing solids and liquid equally.
8. Leave 3 cm (1 inch) headspace.
9. Acidify the jars (see below.) This is a mandatory safety step.
10. Debubble, adjust headspace.
11. Wipe jar rims.
12. Put lids on.
13. 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.)
14. Processing time: half-litre (US pint) jars for 15 minutes OR 1 litre (US quart) jars for 20 minutes.

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.

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