Canning Tomatoes: a beginners how to

I have finally gotten  over the scary hump of canning tomatoes, and just did it.  Very rewarding I must say!  I wanted to do this so I could still be eating local produce (as much as possible) through the winter.  Canning is an excellent way to support your local farmers and have their nutricious foods preserved for your winter 

fare.  *I do not have a camera right now, so the following pictures were taken with my computer, and aren't the most amazing.  My apologies!  Many folks who can regularly have canning equipment: I do not.  So don't be afraid to try to use what you already have!  First, go to your farmers market, garden or store and get your tomatoes!  Today I used 10 lbs of beefsteak tomatoes from a farm in Michigan.  They were only 2 dollars a pound too, which is fantastic.

Step 1: Santize your jars.  I used a mixture of what I had lying around: wide and narrow mouthed mason jars.  My jars have a lid and a ring that you use to seal the jar.  Santize by either placing in dishwasher or a large pot of boiling water for 5 minutes.

Step 2: Boil a large pot of water for de-skinning the tomatoes.  When the water is boiling submerge the tomatoes until you see their skin crack.  (My beefsteaks boiled for about 5 minutes before their skins broke).  

When the tomatoes skin is broken, place them in an ice bath, so they can cool down for you to peel them.  When they are cool enough you should be able to pull the skins right off.

The peeled tomatoes can either be cut into chunks or pured.  I prefer to do halved tomatoes in my larger jars; find they are more versatile this way. 

Now fill your jars within 1/4" of the top, make sure the top is clean (you can wipe with a paper towel or clean rag) put a tablespoon of salt in a large jars and a teaspoon in the small ones.  Place the lids on the jars and you are going to boil the jars standing up in a very large pot of water.  The tops of the jars need to be submerged.  Some people do this from 5 - 40 minutes.  I do it until the top is popped in (so when you press down it does not click any more, you might even hear a POP! while its in the water bath.)  If the top hasn't popped by 40 minutes, you take take it out and it should pop in a few hours.  This made 3 large & 1 small jar of diced tomatoes AND 1 large and 1 small jar of tomato puree.