Being Domestic

I love this time of year... Back to school (okay I don't love that part so much but office supplies for super cheap is always awesome) and the bounty of the gardens that friend and family have planted has began to really come forth. Mom has been a canning fool, canning tomatillo salsa, red salsa, jams and pie fillings and well last night I was able to help can tomatoes, I have helped with a few of the other cannings but this one I actually helped start to almost finish.
We picked tomatoes and I wish I could give you some perspective here some of these were the size of SOFTBALLS!


We (being my mother and myself) picked tomatoes, then we peeled the tomatoes, and if you have never peeled tomatoes before its kind of fun.
{You boil a big pot of water an dunk the tomatoes in the boiling water till the skins crack, you then quickly pull them up out of the water and dunk them in ICE cold water (there are literally ice cubes floating in the water) you then grab the tomato and the slide the peel off... its like pulling blisters off a sunburn. Very satisfying. }

After that we diced up the tomatoes and scooped them into quart jars put the lids on them and mom processed them. 21 quarts of tomatoes in one evening! I am so grateful that I got to do this with my mom. It was really fun to get to go through the whole process and even though we were exhausted it was fun.

Aren't they beautiful?