Tomato Sauce for later

I don't know about you but, our tomatoes have been prolific this year. So I decided it was time I learned to can. Now, like anyone who doesn't have a clue, I ask the wise folk around me how to go about canning and here's what I came up with after listening to many people.... Canning is a long, time consuming process, but if done right the benefits are enumerable. I agree with the time consuming part so if your ready here goes.

First you need to start will a whole bunch of tomatoes.

Something like five pounds. Don't expect to get a lot of sauce in return.

Boil a large pot of water, cut a shallow X on the bottle of the tomatoes like this.

Then dunk the tomatoes in the boiling water for 30 seconds or so until you can see the skins start to split.

After we pealed and seeded the tomatoes we put them in a food processor and pureed them

Since there is a lot of water in the tomatoes we decided to not only season the sauce with fresh herbs we let the puree cook down until there was little if any water left in the pan.

Next we add a 1/2 tsp of fresh lemon juice to insure safe acidity and a touch of sugar to counter act the tartness.

Now keep in mind I've never canned before and I'm inclined to follow directions on this one people even if the directions seem a bit odd.

Then we strained the sauce as we poured it in to our ever-so-clean canning approved jars getting out any seeds that were left behind.

I maybe a smart ass about it, but you really do need to have your jars prepared by washing with hot soapy water or by putting them in the dishwasher.

Leaving a ¼-inch head-space, we wipe the jar rims and adjust lids. Then we processed the jars in a Boiling Water Bath for 40 minutes.

Here's one that my Ladybug plans to enter in the fair next month.