Rainy Saturday ... and more tomatoes

I never knew how many plum tomatoes one sprawling plant could yield. So when hurricane Hanna blew through here the other day, I had plenty of tomatoes around to keep us busy as we continued to try our hand at canning.

They were all very beautiful, similar in size and jewel-like:

We dunked them in hot water then shocked them in cold water so they were easy to peel. Next we packed them in jars with lemon juice and hot water. Then loaded the jars into the hot water bath canner.

After a few hours of this, I also tried my hand at a batch of chutney which required 10 cups of tomatoes (I used large red ones, several varieties), plus cucumber, onion, red pepper, vinegar and some other ingredients.

In the end both canning projects turned out OK, though I think the chutney was a little runny. Here are the quart jars of tomatoes, in front; behind are the pint jars of chutney.

After all of that, I wasn't sure I'd do any more. But the tomatoes just keep coming. So I cooked down another huge kettle of them -- I'm thinking they will be the last for this year -- and hope to put them up tomorrow night.

During this whole process, Evan and I remarked to each other that the massive canning project(s) would not have been possible on our old tiny stove, pre-kitchen renovation!