Tomato Party at Lori's House

Somehow, my sister Lori made canning tomato juice sound really fun, so I headed over to her house Wednesday night and got to work. It wasn't too bad and we got a lot done, although it was a very long night, but we did manage to throw in some dinner. You can read about it all on Lori's blog, if you want more details. Lori was able to steal this new juice maker that her FIL bought and it worked great! Also, with a tip from our mom, keeping the jars hot in the oven, saved us a ton of time!This is a picture of Lori stuffing the tomatoes into the machine.This is how the tomato juice comes out of the machine and pours right into the pot we put on the stove to boil.Once the tomato juice has boiled, we pour it into the hot-from-the-oven jars, then place the salt and fresh-from-the-plant basil leaves, then wipe off the top of the jar, put the lids on, then hope and pray that they start to POP (or seal)!

The first night was such a success that we decided to have another night of tomato-juice fun and got a total of 55 jars complete! I also made sure I told Russ that he's going to have to hook me up with some "Russ-sauce" from this tomato concoction. We should be doing some peach canning soon and then next weekend is the spaghetti sauce festival at Lori's, so if anyone wants to volunteer to help with the canning or watching of the children... please call!