You say Tomato, I say shmomato

Here are some things Sal and I did not register for when we got married: a food mill, pressure canner, dehydrator, giant stockpot and cheesemaking supplies. Silly us. Turns out we've had a need for all of those things in the past few months, and have slowly started acquiring what we can from various sources. My loving husband bought me a dehydrator for our anniversary (and jewelry as well, folks - he knows what's up) and we scored a pressure canner and food mill from my dad on our trip to PA. (Thanks, dad! I know - I'm just "borrowing" them.)

I was really excited to use the food mill and pressure canner for the first time today in processing 20 lbs. of delicious, perfect tomatoes. The food mill is this awesome industrial sized contraption that you attach to the counter. You can press the tomatoes through raw, so it should have been super easy. Wellll, far be it from me to just do something the easy way. I got the bright idea to cook the tomatoes first so the skins would come off easier - not a bad idea in itself, I just decided to use our junky old stockpot to do it. Everything was lovely until the last minute of cooking when a terrible stench filled the kitchen - apparently the bottom of the pot reached its maximum temperature and burnt chunks of black scorching stuff into the sauce. Needless to say - 20 pounds of tomatoes down the tube. I'm still irritated about it to say the least. sigh. I hate wasting food. We didn't even get to use the pressure canner, which is sure to be another adventure. I'm going to put on a happy face, though, and give it a go again next week with a brand-spankin'-new stockpot.