I had a nice Friday evening date with several windowsills full of ripe tomatoes, boiling water and jars.
We have had a bountiful tomato harvest this year and the fall frost is holding off so there is likely more to come. I have had some critters who enjoy taking bites out of our ripe tomatoes in my garden so my strategy has been to pick the tomatoes when they show signs of turning from green to red, then letting them ripen on our window sills.
We have been eating BLT's, tacos, and tomato salads, but I needed to spend some time preserving a large batch of tomatoes, because they were starting to overrun the kitchen and dining room.....I should have taken a picture of our kitchen window that had tomatoes stacked three and four rows high!
The good news is that this task is complete (for now) and our pantry shelves are almost full. We currently have 23 pints of homemade salsa and 10 pints of canned tomatoes. Every year it seems to get a little easier that the kids are all becoming more independent, but at the same time everyone is eating a lot more! But it feels good to have some homegrown produce to enjoy over our long Minnesota winter.