canning tomatoes

canning tomatoes
Originally uploaded by jcampioni

my laura ingalls wilder phase lives on. saturday i went to the farmer's market and picked up 60 lbs of tomatoes for canning. i'd never actually done this before, but my friend celeste was our guide. she, juniper, siobhann and i spent the afternoon blanching peeling and canning 30 lbs.

for the other 30 lbs we cleaned, cored and quartered them to make sauce. that's a lot of tomatoes. strangely it only makes about 12 pints of sauce! poor celeste and juniper ended up working until after midnight to finish the sauce, as i bailed after we filled the stockpot, so that i could spend a little time with my girl.

i'm looking forward to opening these cans in winter when all of the tomatoes in the grocery store are pink instead of red. a little taste of summer.