Canning Tomatoes

Have you ever what about 6o pounds of tomatoes looks like?

A lot like that.  Oh, plus this giant bag full, too:

I’d love to claim that these all came from our garden, but sadly, only about 8 pounds were homegrown here.  The other 50+ came from our local farmer’s market.  The best price I saw was 50 pounds for $25.00, so I went with the fifty, and the seller threw in a few handfuls of huge, ugly tomatoes on top of the fifty pounds.  All told, it may have been closer to 65 pounds that I was dealing with.

The peppers for the salsa, though?  Entirely from our garden.  And it was only after I had cut up 1.5 cups of jalapenos that I noticed that the recipe only calls for 0.5 cups.  Oops?  Or awesome?  We’ll find out soon enough.

And from that, plus a ton of effort, two gargantuan messes, and an unexpected extra trip to the store to buy more lemon juice, we ended up with 22 quart jars of tomatoes, which we will use all winter in chili dishes, or to make red sauces. or in a variety of Mexican dishes that we love.  I also made 6 pints of salsa using a pretty generic recipe that I found on a canning site.  I inadvertently spiced it up a bit by the inclusion of way too many jalapenos, but I’m not sure that this salsa is going to wow anyone.  We may use primarily for huevos rancheros instead – huevos don’t need a ton of flavor help with all of the extra ingredients that we pile on.

In any event, it was a pretty fantastic adventure.  The last time I canned tomatoes I made just seven jars, and I was very miserly about them all winter – I hated using a jar for anything because we had so few.  This year, though, I think we’ll be just fine.

Readers – do any of you can your own veggies/fruits/preserves?  What’s your favorite?  Do you go online for recipes, or do you have tried-and-true family favorites?