I started out on this very rainy day
with the very best of intentions. I wanted to can some tomatoes. 
I had done 84 quarts of grape juice this past fall and was feeling pretty good about my water bath canning skills, so I decided to start doing some of my heirloom tomatoes that were ripe.
However, once again, because I had a plan, God thought he'd put me in my place. He "blew up" my eyes and made me hate looking at myself in the mirror. (For some reason, my eye allergies kicked in today, and I looked like Mike Wizowski from Monsters, Inc. or so the kids said.) Needless to say, I spent the day with an ice pack on my eyes to try to reduce the swelling before our Swine Club banquet tonight. When Brent came home at lunch and saw me sitting at the table eating lunch with an ice pack on my eye, his response was, "What have YOU done today?" Well, you're lookin' at it babe!
My plan to can tomatoes didn't happen until AFTER the banquet tonight....so as we speak, the canner is on the stove with 37 minutes to go and it's 10:45 pm.
When I did get my tomatoes all peeled and cut and stuffed into the jars, I preceded to put them in the canner.....low and behold, once again, my plan was foiled. One of my jars, upon entering the water, decided to break FROM THE BOTTOM. So, I've got 3 jars sitting in the boiling water, and one jar, minus bottom, with tomatoes floating all around the canner. SERIOUSLY! So, we (Brent helped...I'm sure he'll read this and want to congratulate himself) fished out the glass pieces (thankfully they were big) and got all the floating tomatoes out, and started over, only to have one jar keep floating to the top. By now, it's 10:00 pm and I'm getting a little impatient. 3 jars go back into the canner and the timer is set for 85 minutes. Hope this works!
I need tomatoes for the salsa I'll make all winter, so once more tomatoes ripen up, I'll be doing this again, hopefully minus the glitches!
By the way, here is THE BEST recipe for Hacienda-type salsa you'll ever taste.
1 28 oz. can diced/canned tomatoes (drained)
1 t sugar
1 can tomato paste (small can)
3-4 cut up pieces of jalapeno pepper
Blend all together in a blender, and keep in fridge until ready to serve. Tastes GREAT! Wish me luck!
Sounds yummy. Can you use fresh tomatoes in the salsa? I'm not very good at canning, but I have lots of ripe tomatoes I could use to make some up now.
ReplyDeleteI've never tried to use fresh, and believe me, I have a lot of them too. Somehow you'd have to cook them first, but don't ask me how. I've always bought the canned ones in the store, and since I canned my own, I'll use those.
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