42 pints of salsa

I feel a little woozy from the salsa fumes, but it was a big day.

I'd hoped to get a jump start on the canning, but Max's eye appointment put the kibosh on that. I didn't get started until 12:30. My feet are KILLING me now.

But that said, I'm so glad I did it. My greatest fear(s) were that a) noone would come b) too many people would come or c) I'd run out of propane and not can anything.

None of those things happened.

I made two different batches and only the one batch was ready when everyone got here. But the early arrivers helped with chopping and peeling and seeding--so when everyone left, the second batch was ready to go on the stove.

Once we were ready to get going, I demonstrated one batch of how to can the salsa--and then we tasted the cold salsa from last weekend (which is what the other batch of salsa that wasn't finished yet would have been) and the hot salsa from today. And it was fun and sociable and then time for everyone to go home.

But then two of the women stayed to help with the rest of the tomatoes. And this was fantastic because with two more hands, the rest of the tomatoes were peeled and seeded and chopped in under an hour AND I got to have company AND I'd really wanted to get to know these two women but they're really busy and at least one of them is as shy as I am and it just wasn't going to happen, probably, at any other time. So that was very nice.

Then it was late and they needed to go home so we said goodbye. I cooked my salsa and started canning it in batches. The propane ran out on the second to last batch. Only one jar broke (related to switching the canner from the outside propane burner to the inside electric stove).

We have a LOT of salsa. Yum. I think I'm done with salsa. Only tomato soup and spaghetti sauce to go.