Why I need a man.

I wrestled with the pressure canner for 20 minutes, got the lid only about half way on, and finally lamented. It was the first time I've ever used one, so was I doing something wrong? Was something wrong with the lid? Oh, no. Husband was working Friday night, so I thought I'd use the alone time to attempt a tomato canning trial run. I called a friend who lives close by, but no answer. I thought about knocking on one of the neighbor's doors, but I haven't quite gotten that far in my extroversion development. So, I called my brother-in-law. He laughed at me, twisted the top right off and saw that I only had one can in the canner. He laughed at me again, and popped the lid on. So, thank you Tanner for coming to my canning rescue!

I do have questions, though, about my tomatoes. The texture is off, no matter what stage of ripe I think they are. I'm starting to wonder if it's the soil. Our garden was covered in evergreens for a long time. I guess I'll see how the texture of my heirloom tomatoes turns out.

The end product looks like this. I haven't quite decided if I want to actually eat the tomatoes. They aren't pretty, and the jar is 1/4 air. I've read that if the filler (the sugar bath in the case of fruit, or water in this case) isn't close to boiling when the cans are processed, it causes it to boil over and take in air.