Canning Tomatoes

My mum went out to St. Jacobs for a mini holiday with my dad and I asked her to pick me up a half bushel of tomatoes...  Beauty!!

I decided to can some of them whole for sauce/chili/soup in the winter. Here's the recipe I was following: http://www.canadianliving.com/food/cooking_school/step_by_step_canned_tomatoes.php

I started by washing the jars with soap and water. I put them in a cold oven to sterilize, for 20 minutes once the oven had heated up.

I took the skin off the tomatoes by putting them in boiling water for a minute or so. Some split, some didn't, and I found that the ones that didn't were easy to split by running the back of the knife over a small part of the tomato. The heat seemed to make the split bigger and make it easier to peel. I took the tomatoes out of the boiling water and dropped them into cold water a few at a time to peel and core. I then filled a jar with them and added a tablespoon of freshly squeezed lemon juice, leaving 1/2 inch of headspace. 

I covered the jars and left them to boil for 35 minutes.

Beauty!!