Second verse same as the first

Tomatoes! You wanna know what is so exciting about tomatoes? Well, nothing to you maybe, but I put these babies up all by myself. I normally do these projects with my m-i-l or call her a millon times.  I was a big girl, pulled out a canning book and tried to muddle thru it.

We have about five plants. This is kinda a small batch to drag all the canning supplies out for, but I think they will be better for cooking when canned instead of frozen. If I do it right, that is.

I think it is best to go to the experts.

And follow them step-by-step.

Step1 : Hot clean jars. 

and the cheater cheater way to do this:

put them in the dishwasher run them thru a rinse and heat cycle. By the time you get the tomatoes ready, so are the jars.

Step 2: Peel the tomatoes. Just like I did on the peaches.  Consider yourselves warned. When you drop the tomatoes in hot water, you have about 30seconds before they need to go into the ice water or they will split.

Boil

Ice Bath

Peel, Skin slides right off.

Step 3: Chop

That's my fancy chopper that my bestest friend got me in Boston, cause that's how we roll.

  Step 4: Pack them in the jars. (before you start this, boil the "flips" or lids that will top the jars.

Each pint  needs 1 tablespoon lemon juice (quart = 2T)

                                                    1 teaspoon salt per pint ( quart = 2t)

                                                       1 teaspoon sugar per pint ( quart = 2t)

                                                        Add the tomatoes. Blue book says to remove air bubbles but since                                                my tomaotoes were chopped, that wasn't an issue. And leave at least 1/2 inch of headspace at the top pf the jar. Wipe around the rim.

Step5 : Process the jars. (technical term for boil them in a huge pot) This is what seals the jars.

Remove the flips from the boiling water and place them on top of the CLEAN rim. Screw the rings on hand tight. And place them in the canning processor (huge pot of boiling water)

I didn't think the water would ever start to boil but once it did the jars were processed for 45 minutes. And make sure the water is an inch above the jar tops.

Viola! Here is the finished project. They are gonna be awesome in some chilli this winter.