Canning Tomatoes

I had every intention of posting this yesterday, but by the time I was done I was completely unable to type or do much of anything else really...I'll explain...

I shared the other day that we made a great harvest from our garden.

Problem was our tomatoes were so ripe they were beginning to split and weren't going to last very long so I decided to can them rather than let them go bad.

So Friday morning I headed over to my parents house to borrow my mom's canning pot (I didn't have any what were deep enough). I also grabbed a few books on the how-to's of canning since I wasn't really sure what I was getting myself into. So I set up shop in the kitchen and got to work...

I washed and prepped all my pots, jars, lids and utensils!

I blanched all my tomatoes so they would be easier to peel - easy enough.

Here is pic of all my tomatoes peeled, cored, and quartered!

And this is the messy after math of chopping tomatoes (I had even already started to clean up when I snapped this shot) - who knew this was such as messy process? WOW!

I got to cooking up all my tomatoes - there were two batches, one of just plain tomatoes and I also tried my hand at salsa - which turned out to be one of the most painful experiences of my life thanks to jalapenos! You see, as my lengthy clean up process began, my hands began to burn slightly (nothing new I had handled jalapenos before) so I thoroughly washed my hands with luke warm very soapy water. They felt better but began feeling very dry so I put on some lotion. Shortly thereafter the fires of hell began to rip through my fingers! I finished canning and cleaning up and stuck my hands into a bath of ice cold water which made them feel 100% better. The problem was, every time I removed them from the water they began to burn again. So I turned to my trusty laptop and googled ways to stop the burning. MILK - everywhere I looked said turn to milk, so I did. It helped too, but again when I would take my hands out of the milk bath and dry them the burning ensued. So the bf suggested aloe. Tried that too - helped for a while - actually better than the others but still no cure. "Fight Club" happened to be playing on the TV and as I watched them neutralize chemical burns with vinegar I decided to give that a go too, it could only help! No luck though - actually I think it made it worse because my hands were still burning like mad and now everything smelled of vinegar! I quickly found that the more I kept myself moving and the busier I was the less they hurt - or at least the less I noticed it, so busy I became. I unclogged the bathtub drain, cleaned the bathroom spotless, did laundry, cleaned the bedroom, groomed some plants on the balcony, made dinner, prepared my shopping list and so on and so on - then suddenly after HOURS of horrific pain they just up and stopped burning. Well, lesson learned, when handling jalapenos ALWAYS wear gloves!

And finally my final product! It was all worth it - I feel like my first canning experience was a success and thankfully all the jars sealed properly - but I was surprised that all those tomatoes cooked down to so few jars.