So on a whim I bought 50 lbs of fresh tomatoes. I've always wanted to try canning them. I use them in so many recipes (spaghetti sauce, curry, soups, salsa, chili...) and figured I should learn how to do my own. So on the day after watching the midnight showing of "Eclipse" I decided to give it a whirl. Not my best idea. It turns out that canning tomatoes is a HUGE amount of messy work. I've canned peaches before so I was familiar with the process of quick boiling to slip the skins off. Then they were quartered, boiled, poured into jars and processed for 45 minutes. It doesn't sound terrible and it wasn't that bad. But at the end of 6 hours of steamy, sticky work I only had 10 quarts to show for it. Just not enough. I paid $26 for the tomatoes and used a little more than half for my canning efforts. I can buy a #10 can of diced tomatoes from Costco for $3...
Buuuut, I am glad to know how to do it. And if I grow my own tomatoes (someday) and get a bumper crop, then I would probably do it again.
For now I'll stick with jam, which I am completely addicted to and have to make b/c it tastes SO much better than anything at the store. Anyone else canning much these days?
