Canning Tomatoes

September is always a busy canning month in our household. During a short period of about 14 days an average of 10 hampers of tomatoes are processed. Each hamper is ⅝ of a bushel. If I'm making any tomato product that can be run through the food strainer such as soup or smooth sauces I can comfortably process 2 hampers myself in a somewhat long day. Any tomato product that takes more prep work means fewer tomatoes are processed in a day. On salsa and chili sauce days my husband helps with both the prep work and canning. It is easier to do both of these labour intensive products on the same day.

Chili Sauce & Salsas

Chili sauce and salsas are labour intensive products because all of the tomatoes are peeled and all vegetables added are hand chopped. This results in a nice, chunky product quite unlike store bought. Pictured are the total jars of tomato products my husband and I canned Sunday. We started with 2 hampers of tomatoes and used 1½ hampers. The yield was 11 - 500 ml jars of old fashioned chili sauce, 19 - 500ml jars of hot salsa, 13 - 500 ml jars of medium salsa and 12 - 250 ml jars of medium salsa for a grand total of 55 jars of yummy food for gift giving and the pantry. All the jars sealed. I have removed the rings and washed the jars so the final step before storage is to label the jars. I use a fine tip Sharpie to write the contents and date on the lid. The jars are then loaded back into the original cases and transfered to the pantry for storage.