I did this post last week, though I thought I did. But no one saw it, so I knew something was up. In the meantime I upgraded to the premium plan so my site is now ourgrowingpaynes.blog. As I was doing that I asked about this post. Turns out I created a site page instead of a blog post! Doh. Hopefully now I can get this back on track. 🙂
I am really regretting removing our air conditioners. Granted, it’s nice to have a longer growing season this year, but man, the humidity needs to go! While we don’t like it the tomatoes seem to love this. Which means we have to be creative is preserving all that goodness!
One of our favourite restaurants has a really good charcuterie plate and they very often have tomato jam as part of it. It’s something my husband regularly orders there and he asked if I could make some tomato jam at home. No idea how they make theirs but here is my version.
I have to say, prepping the tomatoes is a messy endeavor. But it needs to be done. Cut the tops off the tomatoes and then cut a cross into the bottom. Prep 2 1/2lbs/40ozs of tomatoes for this jam.
Blanch each tomato for about 30 seconds in boiling water.
Remove and set aside to cool. Or you can dip in cold water. I just let them cool. Doesn’t take too long. Remove the skins.
Then it gets really messy! Remove the seeds and coarsely chop up the tomatoes and add to a saucepan. Add a couple of tablespoons of lemon juice and a big handful of fresh thyme. I chopped up the thyme finely as I didn’t want large bits of herb in the jam. Bring the mixture to a simmer. Because I didn’t want a high sugar jam I just added 1 cup/8oz of sugar to start.
Mix well and keep simmering. I also use low sugar pectin to help thicken the jam. I didn’t want to mask the flavour of the tomato with too much sugar. I add a bit of the pectin at the time. Hard to remove it if you go too far!
This is really good with cheese and would be good with bread and butter. It’s a nice alternative to the usual berry jam. A reminder of summer when the cooler decides to finally arrive.
