Welcome to Homesteading with Hyacynth!
Homesteading with Hyacynth is a monthly look at ways to lead a healthy, greener, more sustainable life. My intent with Homesteading with Hyacynth is to offer genuine, practical experiences and humorous and helpful tips. Of course, I am not a medical professional so these are my tips and what worked for my family.
If your garden is anything like mine, you’ve got more tomatoes than you’ve got most anything else.
And that’s great because who doesn’t love a good tomato … or 40?
While I do enjoy tomatoes and almost all foods made from them, I don’t enjoy canning. There. I said it.
The process is just so time consuming.
But behold the slow cooker.
While most of us are well-acquainted with our slow cooker for making meals, last year I discovered by accident really how to make the slow cooker work for tomato harvest and preservation.
I’m sure I’m not the first to discover it, but I’m sharing it with your so you won’t be the last because this harvest preservation method is not only easy. It’s also delicious. I give you Slow Cooker Tomatoes. {And if winter is going to be anything like they say it’s going to be, you may be very very thankful you prepared!}
Here’s what you’ll need:
- Lots of fresh tomatoes — enough to pack into a slow cooker or two
- One large fresh onion
- Several cloves of garlic
- Fresh parsley and basil {optional}
- Dried Italian herbs
- Sea salt
- Pepper
Here’s how to do it:
- Wash tomatoes
- Peel onion and garlic cloves
- Chop onions and garlic finely and toss them into the slow cooker
- Dice tomatoes into large chunks and toss them into the slow cooker
- Wash parsley and basil, chop and put into the slow cooker
- Add a few tablespoons of dried Italian herbs
- Cook for 8 hours on low
- Can as normal
This is great for chili and soup bases and we also use it for lasagna. We may venture into using it for chunky spaghetti sauce this fall, too. Give it a go! You’ll be glad you did!
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