Look at what I did!

With our abundance of tomatoes, I decided to try canning. I've never done it before, although I've always wanted to. Last year I bought a canning book, canning pot, and a bunch of jars at a yard sale. First I canned whole tomatoes. Last Friday I started out by reading the book and looking up tips and watching how-to videos online. It took me awhile to figure out a system, and it made an absolute mess of my kitchen as everything was splattered with tomato juices and peelings. And I was so paranoid about killing my family with botulism that it probably took me longer than necessary as I kept sterilizing and re-sterilizing supplies along the way. Then I was beyond frustrated when I couldn't find the metal wire that came with the pot, for lowering and raising the jars from the boiling water. Whenever we can't find something we blame it on Brennan. That's because he spends his life picking up odd things and relocating them to random places throughout the house, and outside, apparently, as I have since found it in the backyard. But I made do without it. I started out with an overflowing bowl of tomatoes and ended up with 3 quart jars. Then today I made tomato sauce. I looked at bunches of recipes, but I decided to keep it pretty simple and used the recipe for Tomato Basil Marinara in my canning book. I started with 30 tomatoes and ended up with 3 quart jars plus enough to put on our spaghetti tonight. It was DELICIOUS. It cooked for 3 hours, and it thickened up quite a bit, but it was still pretty watery. I am more than pleased with myself. Looking back it was a lot of work - between growing and harvesting the tomatoes, cleaning, peeling, chopping, pureeing in the blender, mixing with onions, garlic and herbs from the garden, boiling for 3 hours, putting in jars, and canning for 45 minutes. But it's such a sense of accomplishment! Plus it tastes tons better than store-bought and it uses up tomatoes so they don't go bad. I seriously might do it again.