Canning Crushed Tomatoes

The reason we grew so many tomato plants this year was so we could eat some and can the rest for the winter. Unfortunately, the hail storm in August ruined that plan. So this morning, Zach and I went to the farmers' market and bought 50 pounds of tomatoes.

We dug up our Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving, picked the easy recipe for crushed tomatoes (just tomatoes, lemon juice, and nothing else!), and got to work.

We blanched the tomatoes in several batches,

we peeled,

cored, (we left the seeds)

then chopped,

cooked,

canned,

and processed.

Perhaps it's because this is our second time canning tomatoes, Zach and I managed to finish all 50 pounds of tomatoes in about 4 hours and were still on speaking terms with each other afterwards! And now we have 16 quarts and 9 pints of crushed tomatoes to show for our efforts today!