Pickled Grape Tomatoes

That was then, and some fond memories too…

The last time I canned anything was about fourteen years ago when we had two huge fig trees in our back yard in New Orleans. About this time of year and for two to three weeks between the end of June and the first few weeks of July, we would have figs coming out of our ears. The children would help pick too and we would have gallon sized plastic zip bags full of the ripe figs sitting on our fridge shelves, and giving away most of them before they went bad. On Several occasions, we would make fig preserves with mostly a lot of sugar, and some orange peel along with the whole figs, cooking them down into a thick jam-like consistency, and then put them up in half-pint jars.  They lasted years and were just as good as the first batch.

This is now, a garden of abundance…

No more fig trees, but we now have an abundance of tiny grape tomatoes, the ?Sweet 100? variety to be exact, along with plenty of cucumbers in our garden this year. So, finally found a great way to put up the diminutive tomato morsels with a pickling recipe from the Ball Blue Book guide to preserving, the 100th Anniversary Edition which was printed in 2009. In addition, since the book is used as a guideline I modified the recipe to suite my tastes and used only ½ the amount of white wine vinegar, replaced the other ½ using cider vinegar and in place of the white vinegar, and doubled the amount of garlic in the recipe.

The next time I process the pickled grape tomatoes, I may add some form of fresh peppers to help add a hotter flavor profile.

This recipe will yield about six 1-pint jars of pickled grape tomatoes.

The recipe…

Ingredients


1 ½
Quarts
Grape tomatoes


1
Tsp
Salt


1
Cup
White wine vinegar


2
Cups
Cider vinegar


1
Quart
Water


12
Cloves
Garlic, peeled, whole


6
Sprigs
Fresh rosemary






Procedure steps


1.
Wash the grape tomatoes and drain them to dry.


2.
Combine the salt, white wine vinegar, cider vinegar, water, and whole garlic in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil, then simmer for 10 minutes.


3.
Prick the grape tomatoes with a paring knife to help prevent them from splitting or cracking. Then pack the grape tomatoes in hot 1-pint jars and leaving a ¼-inch headspace. Ladle the warm pickling liquid leaving a ¼-inch headspace, and be sure to add two cloves of garlic to each jar and one rosemary sprig.


4.
Remove any air bubbles, and then place the two-piece lids and rings onto each jar. Process the jars in a boiling-water canner pot with 1 to 2 inches of water covering the tops of the jars for 10 minutes at 212° F with the canner lid on.


5.
Turn off heat and remove lid from pot, allow the jars to sit in the hot water for 10 more minutes, then remove the jars and allow them to cool on a kitchen towel for 12 to 24 hours. Label and date then store the jars of pickled grape tomatoes for up to 1 year.

Next items up on the canning agenda?

?new pickle cucumber salad, bread and butter pickles, fresh salsa, fire roasted tomato sauce, east meets west barbecue sauce, oh my!

Bon appetit!

CCR

=:~)

©2010 CCR