Preserving the Harvest

Last year, I took a 3-day class in Richland Center and became a (capitalized for importance)CERTIFIED MASTER FOOD PRESERVER in Wisconsin. The class got me excited about sauerkraut and sun-dried tomatoes and made me extremely nervous about pressure canning. But tonight! Tonight, I conquered my fears, with Jake's help, and together we made 13 quarts of crushed tomatoes, in just 6 and half hours!

I had thought that a pressure canner would be more efficient, but its not. It still takes a boatload of time to skin, core, quarter, cook/crush, jar, and process. Maybe next time will be faster now that we know what we're doing. Probably not.
HOWEVER: chili made with our OWN tomatoes and our OWN beans will taste great this winter! This was our first experiment with growing dried beans, and we harvested two pounds or so of Tigers Eye beans, but next year we'll plant at least twice as many... a great source of backyard protein.