On Labor Day, my friend Sherry shared her kitchen and canning talents by helping me can 100 pounds worth of tomatoes into sauce. I had purchased the tomatoes from Ridgeview Farm. I had 40 pounds of tomatoes already juiced when I arrived at 8AM and quickly got to work on juicing the other 60 pounds.
Soon enough, we had sauce simmering on the stove and in the oven.
When we ran out of room inside, we added the turkey fryer outside. This huge pot on a burner worked great!
After a few hours of work, it was time to fill the jars and use the pressure canner. I really enjoyed learning how to use the pressure canner since I usually do water bath canning.
By 5PM, we had canned almost 9 gallons worth of tomato sauce. Some of it is seasoned with herbs and some is plain. I plan to use some for ketchup and BBQ sauce throughout the year, in addition to pasta sauce.
My pantry is fairly stocked with tomato sauce now. Next year, I plan to branch out to canning diced tomatoes in addition to sauce.