Lucy and Ethel Can Tomatoes

Labor Day weekend, I went home to Arkansas. After the surprisingly easy canning experience I had with Roxanna, my sister and I thought we could do a little canning while the boys were napping. Oh. My. Goodness. Why I ever thought something Allison and I did together would be easy is beyond me. When you get the two of us together, trouble is brewing. My sister blogged about it, and I really don't think I can put it into better words than her. So here is her account...

The Pioneer Sisters
Caroline and I decided to can tomatoes. I've never done it-she had done it once-but with a microwave-that's a whole other story. We went to the fruit & veggie stand down the street-that farmer has the BEST tomatoes I have EVER tasted-seriously. So we bought about 20 lbs and took them home. That was the easy part.

Tomatoes boiling away

Caroline dutifully chopping up the tomatoes so they could stew

After stewing the tomatoes for a good long while, we got them into their jars to boil. *Side note*: Caroline had to go buy a water bath canner because we were planning to seal them in the microwave-until I googled how to do it and found out that they say NOT to do it because it doesn't heat evenly and you can't be sure that the bacteria is getting hot enough to die. So that was a big sidetrack.

So we put them in to boil-and couldn't figure out how in the world to get 7 quart-size jars in there like they said we could-we tried and tried-and gave up and just boiled a few at a time.
We didn't get those cool canning tongs that keep you from boiling your hands when you have to get them out, so we had to use my tiny kitchen tongs that have trouble sometimes picking up a piece of chicken. THAT was an adventure. We each burned our hands, said some choice words, but eventually, we got them all out, only to discover....

See that rack in the bottom of the pot? We thought it was just to keep the cans from touching the bottom of the pot. Turns out, it does double duty. It has these handy little handles that pull up, so that you don't have to reach in the pot and burn the $@#* out of your hands. Those were what was in our way so that we couldn't get all our jars in. And look what else! They have little hooks on them so you can just pull the rack up and set it on the side of the pot! It would've been nice if they had mentioned that in the directions.

My portion of our finished project. It will be worth it. But from now on, I think I'll just stick to freezing them in ziploc bags like I did last year. Much easier.

P.S. A note from Caroline... I have had my "microwaved" canning products and they turned out just fine. No worries there! I will definitely use my pot in the future, now that I have one, because it is actually much easier. And if you are seriously interested in doing this in the future, now is the time to stock up on supplies. I got my pot on clearance at Wal-Mart for $18 since canning season is coming to an end. My sister also bought us each Seal-A-Meals this time last year on clearance for $19. Definitely worth a stroll down the canning aisle!