Tomatoes! Again!

Fall is officially here in Virginia. Thursday it was 95 degrees. Yesterday I walked out the door and it was in the low sixties. Tonight it's going to be in the fifties. Yup, fall is officially here!

While I'm excited about the prospect of more glorious crisp autumn mornings, DIY decorating with leaves and white squashes, and most importantly, fresh apple cider, I'm not quite ready to let go of summer yet. I haven't finished canning tomatoes and various tomato products to last us through the winter months. I had planned to can whole tomatoes from our CSA, but their crop apparently did not do as well as they'd hoped, so my hopes for buying a giant box of tomatoes were dashed. No problem, I said to myself. I'll just buy 10 or so lbs this weekend and next from the farm market, as they are selling off the last of their crop.

But what did I find waiting for me at the market, way in the back? Giant boxes of Roma tomatoes for a meager $20! Jackpot! I did not weigh the boxes but they are at least 15 lbs and probably more like 20 or 25. I plunked one down in my cart and as I wheeled excitedly up to check out, the lady behind the counter remarked, "Ooh, d'you mind if I tell Roger you're buying this? He was disappointed that nobody was buying these boxes."

I regarded her with a perplexed look. "But....they're perfect for canning," I replied. "I'm so excited you have them!" Roger (the tomato guy?) teased me for disrupting his display but was clearly gratified that someone would be using the tomatoes. I assured them that I would be back for another box, and I will...probably tomorrow. But yesterday I blanched, peeled, and quartered every last one before carefully packing them into pint-and-a-half jars (thanks, Target). By the time I finished it was getting a little late and I was starting to feel under the weather from a (thus far) mild cold, so my lovely husband offered to process them for me. We used the pressure canner. Worked great and did not make the kitchen horribly hot like water bath canning does, but only four jars fit at once because they were so tall.

That's not a problem, you say. I mean after all, how many jars could there have been? Well, funny story about that.....*cough* fourteen *cough cough*.

Yup. Fourteen jars, translating to twenty-one pints of beautiful, ripe Roma tomatoes. It's probably more like nineteen or twenty because some of the jars weren't as tightly packed as they could have been, but still... That's a lot of tomatoes and boy are they gorgeous! Boy was my poor husband up late! But he agrees, they'll be worth it.

Of course I labeled them. I'm obsessed with labels, remember?

Tomorrow....pasta sauce!