EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN

Tomatoes are that beautiful fruit that makes you sing the praises of long, hot summer days.  The possibilities are endless…sauces, salsas and just a good old-fashioned BLT.  If you are lucky, you may get a bumper crop and must decide what to do with it.  After all, while delicious, you can eat only so many before you curse them.  Do you give them away or figure out a way to save them?

While our crop was not so good over a decade ago, my neighbor and I started talking about canning.  Of course, I was anxious since my only experience was listening to the pickles exploding in the basement.  My Mom was always trying new things and we can safely say this was not one of her successes.
My neighbor and I jumped into the research and became emboldened with our adventure into canning.  Or, in our case, “ca-jarring.”  We were successful and now hold an annual day-long fete of canning our tomatoes into sauces and salsas each August. 
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Unless you have a farm or get a good crop of tomatoes from your urban garden, buying tomatoes in season can be an expensive idea.  The best time of the year is to go to your farmer’s market at the end of the season when they will sell you a big box of tomatoes for a reduced rate.  Since we roast our tomatoes, who will notice a blemish here and there?  And it never gets old to hear our giggles in the middle of winter when we open a Summer fresh jar of sauce!