It’s hard sometimes, feeling motivated when there’s a 100-degree heat index and I’m thinking, it’s just me nowadays, just one person, so why should I care about canning tomatoes? A hot job if there ever was one, especially without even a breeze blowing through my holler. Or any air conditioning. I’d rather stretch out somewhere cool with my Kindle. And yet, there’s something fulfilling about canning my own home-grown organic tomatoes, about recognizing a survival chore for the blessing that it is. I think my friends who raise chickens and gather their eggs feel the same way, that the chore is also a blessing, a connection with Nature that keeps us feeling grounded and peaceful.
When my kids were little I used quart jars and went through
tons of tomatoes. I’m still canning –actually I should say, I’ve come back to canning—but I’ve downsized my
jars. I’ve started using 8-ounce jelly jars, which make perfect single-size
helpings, great for adding to the almost-daily pot of vegetable soup that will
sit on the woodstove come winter, or for making a tiny amount of pasta sauce or
pizza sauce. The small jars save me heaps of tomatoes—and energy—because I’m
not putting up more than I can consume, and I don’t need to refrigerate
leftovers.
To can tomatoes in 8-ounce canning jars, I add a pinch of
salt and just under a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar to each jar of hot, diced
tomatoes, then process in the boiling waterbath for 10
minutes.
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