Canning

Yesterday I embarked on my first endeavor to can tomatoes.  I had everything I needed: mason jars, tomatoes from the garden, and a water bath canner that my aunt gave me when we visited her this summer.

Seventeen tomatoes seems like quite a bit, but it's not.  All that work and I only had one quart size jar of tomatoes.  The jar had to process in the water bath for 50 minutes.  That was a lot of water for one measly jar of tomatoes.  My upstairs turned into a sauna for the rest of the day.

After I pulled the jar out, I put it on the counter to cool down.  I was pretty worried because it hadn't sealed by last night.  I gave up on it and put it in the fridge, figuring that we would be making chili this week.  This morning I checked on the jar and it sealed overnight in the fridge.  I don't have great confidence in it and plan to leave it in the fridge until we make that batch of chili.

I think next time I'll make tomato sauce and use pint size jars.