CAN along...you CAN do it!

In honor of my cherry and pear shaped tomatoes ripening, let's do a Can-Along!  

We'll be canning Pickled Pear Tomatoes with Rosemary.  The recipe comes from this wonderful magazine that I picked up at Sam's Club this spring...it's a Better Homes and Gardens Special Interest Publication, called Canning.  The magazine is pricey...$9.99, but I think it's worth every penny.  All of my canning this year has come from recipes inside this magazine and my tummy has loved every one of them.

Today we'll focus on gathering all of our materials/supplies/ingredients.

Things that make canning easier and more fun:

1.  A large stainless-steel, enamel, or non-stick heavy saucepan (not photographed)

2.  A large water-bath canner (the black thing in the above photo)

3.  A canning rack to go inside of your canner to hold the jars up off the bottom of the canner (the silvery/whitish thing in the photo)

4.  A large mouth canning funnel (the green thing in the photo)

5.  Canning tongs for grabbing your jars out of the boiling hot water (the silver/green thing in the photo)

Now of course you could order all of these things from a fancy online canning supply company but I've found all of my supplies at either Fleet Farm, Walmart, or Cub Foods.  I actually call Fleet Farm "my canning headquarters" because it truly has the best selection and lowest prices.

For our recipe I would recommend using Wide Mouth Half Pint Jars.  And since I don't ever go to all the trouble to can just one recipe, we'll be doubling the recipe and needing at least 14 jars.  If you're gonna do it, you might as well DO IT, am I right?

And onto the recipe, here's what you'll need:

10 cups yellow and/or red pear shaped or round cherry tomatoes

2 cups thinly slivered sweet onions

1 teaspoon crushed red pepper

12 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced

4 1/2 cups white balsamic vinegar

1 1/2 cups water

2/3 cups sugar

6 tablespoons pickling salt (this can be found near the canning jars in your local grocery store)

2 tablespoons fresh rosemary leaves

1 teaspoon whole black peppercorns

1 teaspoon whole pick peppercorns

1 teaspoon whole white peppercorns

2 bay leaves.

Get all your gear together and meet back here tomorrow to get started!