Canning up a storm!

Okay, one batch of tomato sauce is not really a "storm," but it has been storming outside all day long. In fact, when I went to the grocery store to pick up a few last-minute ingredients this morning, I encountered three roads that were too flooded to travel. (I only live about 2.5 miles from the grocery store - we've had some serious flooding issues this summer.)
I'm not sure if you can see the raindrops on the window, but it was absolutely storming outside. The light between the trees is actually a reflection of our living room lamp.

Blanched tomatoes. (I also use this snowman platter for cutting sweet corn off the cob to freeze. I use it because it has the best shape of all of my dishes for that job, but it is also a good reminder about how all this hard work will pay off in the middle of winter.)

Making tomato puree with the Chinois set I got last week, which - to my dismay - came with no instructions. (I love it. I'm not sure if I used it correctly, but I like what it did.) My hair got more frizzy and my face got redder as the day went on, if you were wondering ;)

Tomato puree, my way. (And the tomatoes that weren't cut out for canning. They ended up in our dinner - caprese salad, of course - and the salsa I made while the sauce was simmering.)

When my dad and his dog Gizmo arrived, they jumped right in the mix. My dad cleaned the tomatoes he brought, then while I blanched them he chopped the four onions he brought - three of which came from our garden!
I think he had a good time. In addition to chopping onions, he read all the directions about the water bath, and how to prepare the jars, and he did the bulk of the dishwashing, too!
Ten quarts of tomato puree is a lot!

The dogs liked to lay on the floor between the stove and the island where I was doing most of the prep. Amazingly, we didn't drop anything on either dog.

Confession: I didn't really have a recipe to make the tomato puree that my tomato sauce recipe called for. I had to kind of wing it based on other recipes and some advice from my mom. (I will post my very own personal recipe soon.) The actual tomato sauce recipe (from Animal, Vegetable, Miracle) started with: "soften the onions in a heavy 3-gallon kettle."

And we're off!
While the onions softened, I mixed the rest of the spices, then added them, along with most of the tomato puree. (Our pot wasn't quite big enough. I simmered the rest separately and added it when there was room in the pot.)
Eventually it started to cook down. (That is a piece of my homemade dried basil floating in the top. I didn't crush the leaves very well before throwing them in the pot.)

While the sauce simmered my dad washed 7 quart jars.
The 21.5 quart water bath doesn't quite fit back there, but we made it work.

This is after I had poured all of the sauce into the pot. I let it simmer down for about another hour because Michael was at a movie with a friend and my dad had gone to have dinner with his brother. I was too freaked out about botulism to actually do the canning on my own.

I would write more about the process, but I managed to scald my right thumb and index finger, and most of my left hand while putting the lids on the jars. (That's right, I plunged my left hand right into a pot of almost-boiling water.) Other than that minor incident, and my mini freak-out when Michael and my dad were both gone, the canning went surprisingly well. Especially since I made my first foray into canning on Friday the 13th!

Busy kitchen: bread in the oven, sauce on the stove, salsa in the making.

Local salsa. The tomatoes are from my garden, the CSA, and leftover canners that had blemishes. The onions, peppers, cilantro, and garlic are from the CSA. (The chips are from the grocery store, but I never said I was perfect.) I dealt with my stress over the possibility of having to can alone by chopping. If my dad hadn't returned by the time the salsa was done, I would have done the next best thing - dishes.

The Finished Product(s)

My dad brought me a zucchini with the tomatoes. Before I could put the new zucchini in the fridge I had to do something with one that was already in there. It became zucchini bread. (Slightly underdone zucchini bread because I forgot to set the timer.)

Salsa (which I haven't tried, but Michael says is good).

Seven jars of canned tomato sauce - my first batch of canned goods. (The 8th jar did not fit in my water bath and will be stored in the fridge till we eat it next week.)

Maybe when my fingers feel better I will do the math and figure out a cost comparison between home-made and grocery store tomato sauce. I wonder how much our labor worth . . . it took me 11 hours, mostly on my feet in the hot kitchen, and I couldn't have done it at all without my dad's help!