More preserving :)

Hi all!
Again it is not quilting but here is what I did today :) I put up two full bushels of Roma tomatoes! We bought the tomatoes at the Parkdale Market in Ottawa yesterday and last night I chopped one 10 pound bag of onions and and about 6 pounds of chili peppers and red peppers. Wow was that a lot of work but it made a massive difference when it came to doing all the tomatoes this morning. I started preserving this morning at about 8:30 am and i finished at about 4:00 pm. Whew! You can see a picture of the three tomatoes sauces here. On the far end is tomato sauce with onions and red peppers and chilies. Big pot closest to us is tomatoes with onions and red peppers and the small pot is just crushed tomatoes.
Finally at about 4:00 pm or so today I had all the jars water processed and labeled! Not too bad huh? I can't believe that I was able to do this many tomatoes all in the same day! My secret is the Lee Valley European Tomato Press! It is the most amazing thing and if you like to preserve tomatoes you should definitely get one. This is not an ad I'm just saying that this is something that you can not live without once you've tried it :) 8 years ago I tried to process one full bushel of tomatoes the old fashioned way and it took me three days! (Maybe I'm slow) With the Lee Valley press we did two full bushels today! All you do it take off the stem end of the tomatoes and quarter them; put them into a pot and scald them until they release their jouice and their skins start to come away from the flesh; then put them though the press. I put them through the press three times to get the most out of the pulp. The press removes all the skins and the seeds! How cool is that!! Sorry but I just love this press a lot and it has eliminated a million hours from my preserving hours!

BTW I use this for jams in exactly the same way :)

Sorry about another no quilting post but this took up a lot of my time and I wanted to share my day with you all :)