Canning Tomatoes

SO    MANY      TOMATOES!!!!!

Is it possible to have too many tomatoes? 

To that I say NO! I'm not a big fan of raw tomatoes (the gooeyness of them makes me spit them right back out) so one might be wondering why I have so many tomatoes. I LOVE to cook, and my husband loves pasta. So this year I grew 12 roma tomato plants, and I am getting a lot of tomatoes form them. I was at the point of three big bowls full of them, so I decided that I was at the point that it was worth doing the canning at that point. Canning tomatoes is relatively easy but it is time consuming. To start off with, pick the tomatoes. Then blanch for 45 seconds, where upon you move them into a ice water bath. This makes the skins of the tomatoes peel off super easily. Once they are all de-skinned, I dice them up, put them diced tomatoes into sterilized jars. Add some lemon juice then top up with heated tomato juice (or in the case of me being cheap, boiling water), then slap the lid on. I don't have a pressure cooker so I water bath them for 45 minutes. From my three big bowls of tomatoes I got 9 quarts of canned tomatoes. I'm super excited. 

Happy Homesteading!!