Canning Tomatoes: Part 1

Last summer was my first time using my pressure canner purchased at a yard sale. I used the food mill my grandmother gave me to can sauce and then soup. I wasn't planning on making the soup but after I saw how long it took the tomatoes to cook down to sauce and how much less in volume my output was, the second batch remained as a soup. We enjoyed both this winter, though the sauce was still not thick enough.

This year we discovered a good 5 Minute Tomato Sauce and we make it quite often using a 28 oz can of crushed tomatoes. We make it about once every two weeks. So this year my goal in canning tomatoes is to make crushed tomatoes that we can then use as a tomato sauce base.

I gathered my tomatoes from a variety of sources:

• My garden yielded 5 lbs. 3 oz. of paste tomatoes.
• The fourth grade students at school have a garden and did not take all the recently picked tomatoes home. They were beginning to go bad in the back of my co-workers classroom so I'm using 5 lbs. 8 oz. of those and donating a jar of canned tomatoes back to the teacher.
• Today I purchased almost 14 lbs of canning grade tomatoes from Dutton Farm Stand.

Tonight I prepared about half of the tomatoes by dunking them in boiling water for 15 seconds and then in a cold water bath. Then I removed their skins and quartered them. In the picture above you can see the first of two large tupperwares I filled with the quartered tomatoes and put in the fridge for tomorrow. I figured it will make tomorrow less steamy and break up the time I'll have to spend on my feet.