Got Tomatoes?

Three tomato plants (Better Boy; German Queen Heirloom; Rutgers) and the tomatoes are finally ripe enough to use . . . all of them at once it seems!  So, I've pinned a few recipes on Pinterest (tell me you're as addicted to Pinterest as I am) that use tomatoes.  Today I decided to make "Aunt Della's Tomato Preserves"  with the abundance of Better Boy tomatoes.  You can find the recipe here:

  http://www.cdkitchen.com/recipes/recs/7/AuntDellasTomatoPreserves61735.shtml  

Like a lot of recipes, it gives you the time it takes . . . or so I thought that's what the "Ready in:  30-60 minutes" meant (are you sensing another time management problem here?).  It really means that that would be the time you will simmer the preserves to thicken the batch.  It does not take into consideration the time it takes to gather the tomatoes . . . peel and seed the tomatoes . . . or the time it takes to run to the grocery store because you only have 4 cups of sugar and it takes 5 . . . or how long it takes to clean-up because your shoes are sticking to the seeds/juice that have splattered all over the kitchen, your shirt, your shoes and is dripping down the front of the stove and pooling on the floor.  I am a messy cook . . . and this was an all day affair!

In addition to the canning jars I purchased at Walmart yesterday, I also picked up a few half-pint jar caddies that will make a nice little gift for the holidays . . . didn't notice that I should have gotten the little squat jars instead of the taller ones . . . oh well . . . maybe for the next batch . . . that will add another half hour to an hour to make the trip to Walmart for squat jars . . .  might as well pick-up some more sugar while I'm at it!

Happy Harvest  ~*