Tomatoes

Linda and I tried our hands at bottling tomatoes last Friday. I have done it once before and I called my mom beforehand for pointers. I found some late season tomatoes and unfortunately, wasn't able to buy as many as I would have liked since he would only sell them for cash and I only had $15 on me. We blanched the tomatoes, skinned them, cut them in quarters and filled the bottles. After a teaspoon of salt, we put them in the pressure cooker. We let it go until the pressure indicator dropped down and opened the lid to find - all the lids were off!
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It dawned on me that I hadn't put the rings on. Mom didn't mention that specifically and I obviously didn't think it through. In fact, when I was putting the pressure cooker lid on, I did wonder at how those lids were going to seal down when they were just kind of floating on top! It's the miracle of the pressure cooker - right? Dummy!
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We thought that we knew what to do now but Linda had to leave shortly so we didn't want to wait for the pressure cooker again. We got out the steamer that Linda used with her sis the week before to do pears. They did the pears without rings so following suit, we put the tomatoes in sans rings and let them go. After 30 minutes, we opened them up to find that some lids sealed but others were off.
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In the end, we determined that rings make sense with all canning processes and we shouldn't just listen to the advice of others when what makes sense to us says otherwise - we are fairly logical girls, but got distracted by tradition. What was that story about cutting the ends of the roast . . .
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In the end, we ran the batch through three times. Scott keeps teasing me about all the work we did so that I could bring home a whopping 3 quarts. I'm sure they are the best tasting tomatoes ever! I can't wait to make spaghetti sauce from them. Next year I'll buy my tomatoes earlier in September and find them cheaper and do a ton - and I'll remember to use the rings!