Canning - A Dying Art

I think canning is a dying art now a days. I think I only have 2 friends who actually know how to can. Recently, I spent a whole morning in my mom's kitchen. She taught me how to can tomatoes. I canned pepper jelly and grape jelly about 3 years ago and it was wonderful! Time consuming, but what a sense of accomplishment. I had to keep calling my Grandmother and Mom during the process, but I got it done and the jellies were delicious.

I had never canned tomatoes before. I never had an interest when I was younger and still lived at home. That stuff seemed so boring then. My how things change as you grow, mature and have a family of your own.

Thankfully, my parents had a good yield of tomatoes this year and had plenty to share. Our tomatoes didn't fare so well. Apparently, they got some type of rot. No tomatoes for us! We started the morning out by blanching the tomatoes in boiling hot water just for a few seconds so the skin would easily come off the tomatoes. Then we plopped the tomatoes into ice water to cool for a few seconds. Next we cored the tomatoes, peeled off the skins and cut the tomatoes up a bit and dumped them into the giant pot. Once we filled the pot almost to the rim, we brought the tomatoes to a boil and let them boil for about 20 minutes. After boiling, we filled our jars with the tomatoes, wiped the rim clean and then gently placed a lid on top and screwed on the ring. After a while, my mom's dinning room table begin to fill with jars of pretty, red tomatoes. We ended up canning 15 quarts. They still had tomatoes left over! We ended our morning with a delicious BLTs for lunch. My mom had picked up some really good bacon from their local meat locker for the occasion.

Canning tomatoes is pretty easy. Easier and less messy than making jelly. I'm looking forward to canning again next summer with my Mom. When I was little, she canned everything. And what she couldn't can, she froze. Our shelves in the basement were chock full of all types of home canned goods. Green beans, homemade pickles, applesauce and a variety of jellies. I think the homemade applesauce, made from our apple tree in the front yard was my favorite growing up! It was a great way to swallow giant pills when you were sick too. Mom would hide the pill in a spoonful of that applesauce. It was thick applesauce too. Not like the stuff we buy in the grocery store today, which to me is very watery. Just talking about this makes me want to can some applesauce next year! Hey, Mom.......;)