Bottling Tomatoes

Pete enough sitting by the pool there are cooking classes to attend.
Today the tomato preserving and bottling is done in the traditional way.

First grab a group of friends wash the La Mache sandy soil from the tomatoes, arm oneself with a paring knife sit in a circle and several hours later with loads of conversation over numerous vino bianco 300 bottles of  preserved tomatoes, simple.

 Some we even get to take for our traveling pantry, got to love the traveling pantry it will come in handy in Venice where we will have an apartment on the grand canal with kitchen for a week.

Not rocket science but a fun day was had. The Italians seed the tomatoes that way there is less water but well feed chickens ... so nothing wasted ... seams a waste to me as I don't have chickens but as I keep saying when in Rome. For the more avid Italian they would even let the tomatoes dry out in the sun for a further couple of days this will intensify the finished flavour, so again personal choice. Once the toms are cut and drained push as many as possible into the sterilised bottles so that any excess moisture come out the top of the jars. This will leave only a small air space once the jars are sealed. Place the jars in a large pot of cold water and then bring to the boil cook for 20 mins at 100 deg. This creates a vacuum and pasteurise so they will keep for years.