Canning Tomatoes!

So today I finally broke down and got to canning my tomatoes. I can't wait to be using them throughout the winter. Here is a quick recap of how I canned them:



First I washed all the tomatoes thoroughly, they came from my garden so this didn't take long.

I then just sat them in a colander and a couple mixing bowls since I had quite a few tomatoes (6 1/2 lbs).

I got all my pots filled with water and started to get them all boiling while I cut X's on the tomatoes. I needed of course the big canning pot, a small sauce pan for the lids, a slightly bigger one for boiling water to add the the jar of tomatoes, and lastly the 6 qt stockpot to boil/blanch the tomatoes in.

 Next I made shallow X's on the bottoms of all the tomatoes with a sharp knife. 

 I got a large bowl ready for the shocking the tomatoes by putting several cubes of ice in the bowl and filling it with water to make a nice cold bath for them.

When I got the 6qt stockpot boiling I added about 4 - 5 tomatoes at a time for about 30 - 45 seconds until they started to crack. Then I put them into the water bath to shock them.

After they cool in the water bath which is around 1 min, they were ready to be peeled and chopped. The skins came right off so easily.

I chopped them up and got them ready to add to the jars. I made sure to have a clean towel under the entire work area because tomatoes are messy and when the jars come out of the canner they need to be placed on a towel to cool anyways.

After I had chopped some of them I prepared the jars by adding 1 TBS of lemon juice to the bottom of each of the jars. I used small half pint 8 oz jars so that was plenty of "acid" for them to be safe.

I then added the tomatoes to the jars leaving about 1/2 an inch of space at the top of the jars and used the bubble removing tool to get out any air bubbles in the jars. I added boiling water to the jars  filling them to about 1/4 from the top of the jar and used the bubble tool again just to make sure they were ok before adding the lids.

When they looked like this with the lids on tightly I added them to the canner to boil for 30 mins.

And wahlah lol here is what they looked like when they were set out to cool down and finished. Some obviously I stuffed with more tomatoes than others, no biggie they are just fine and delicious. I got 11- 8oz jars out of my 6 1/2 pounds of tomatoes with just over a pound left over to make some sauce for pizza tonight.

A little off topic here but it is getting close to the 4th of July. 

Found this picture of my son Zac from last 4th of July.

My husband Jeremy finally has the 4th off this year for the first time in 4 years, which is really great because he works at night and we will finally be able to take the kids to see the big fireworks together tomorrow. Our town is having their smaller fireworks show tonight so for that it will just be my kids and I. What is everyone else doing for the 4th of July? Leave me a comment to let me know or if it's past the 4th when you are reading this let me know what you think of my canning tomato tutorial. :-)