Canned Tomatoes

I've been suffering from a bit of insomnia, so it totally wiped out my energy this week; I hardly managed to do anything productive. Today, however, I finally had some energy and I decided I wanted to deal with our growing pile of tomatoes. Between our CSA and our tomato plants, we had a pretty large backlog.

I first made a batch of tomato sauce. Since I mostly used cherry tomatoes, I used the easy method where you just throw the clean tomatoes into the food processor and turn them into juice then cook them down until they're sauce. (I found the method at this website.) I turned five heaped pint baskets of tomatoes into three small jars of sauce.

Then I did a second batch of diced tomatoes from the larger tomatoes. (I used the method from this website.) I peeled the tomatoes and Jeff cut them into small pieces for me and added a bit of basil from the garden. Then we added lemon juice and put the cut tomatoes into the jars. Though, I don't think we smashed the tomatoes down enough in the jars, so there's a big gap now at the top. So, I don't really know if they worked or not. They all sealed, so perhaps they're OK. I may pop them into the refrigerator just in case.

I have finally gotten the hang of using the reusable canning lids. It's best not to put the rubber seal part into the hot water bath because it expands and then doesn't fit jar properly. I just keep them at the side and add them as I put on the plastic lid. The rubber ring doesn't come in contact with the food.