First...thank you for the offer Zabby :) I just don't know where I'd plant more next year ;) My husband wants to try some cherry type next year so I'm going to track down the "Fox Cherry" for him (a semi-rare heirloom type)...well he dosn't care what's out there, he just wants to eat it when it's ready ;) I'm going to sacrifice one of the MONSTER brandywine in it's place I noticed the first Roma that formed is starting to get color!!! Must be time for the bird net :-\ We had a nesting pair of falcons in the area about a month ago...wish they'd come back to keep the birds out of the garden As for the BER...it's really weird...it was only one plant and only 3 or 4 tomatoes on that plant...they were all on the same branch though. I did some checking on all my plants after that to make sure. So far so good :) Right now I'm drowning in cukes. I went out yesterday after work and all the little babies that I saw last week were big fat monster cukes. I thought I was going to need a basket to carry them all inside! My husband is starting to drool thinking about the "bread and butter" and "sweet dill" pickles his mom used to make...which I now have the recipe for :D

I agree completely with all that Carol said about the risks associated with your recipe. As is, it is not safe to can. At the very least you would have to eliminate the oil, switch to dried herbs only, and add some form of acid. I'm confused as to why a whole tomato is ok to can but liquid tomato is not. Or is it? Plain whole tomatoes are safe to can because acid, in the form of citric acid, bottled lemon juice or lime juice, or vinegar, is added to them to reduce the pH into the safe acidic level range. Your recipe contains no acids and it would require a great deal more than plain tomatoes do because of all the added low-acid ingredients - the garlic and fresh herbs. With this recipe freezing is the only safe option, sorry. Dave

Squeezo is a very old name for the newer model Villaware or Roma food strainer. These use a very good design that incorpoates a spiral auger that pushes the juices through a fine holed screens and removes all traces of seeds and skins. No prepping needed, unless the tomatoes are really big, where you simply cut them in quarters. Its similar to a meat grinder, but its for most any food that has skins and/or seeds. I use it for red raspberry jam without seeds. The use of a finer hold berry screen is what gives me just the juices and soft pulp, and any seeds are pushed out the end of the conical sieves. They also make a shorter spiral for large grape seeds and a pumpkin screen or even a 3/16 inch hole salsa screen. These are extra attachments. If you were dong a LOT of tomatoes or othr things, also suggest the motor unit. I have one here and 'crank' out a bushel in about 10 minutes. The newer ones have a twist on strainer screen, while teholder models have two big wingnuts on each side of the screens. Of allthe models and improvements, the nerwer ones work better, leak less and are very easy to work. Here is a link that might be useful: Food strainer

Very different recipes. You can't generalize from one recipe to another even if they appear to be for similar things - like soup. Each recipe is evaluated independently. For example, Katie's roasted soup has much less tomatoes, no sugar which can bind up free water, olive oil, chicken broth which also contains fats, and MUCH more garlic which is ranked very high on the botulism source list. Different ingredients mean different pH and different density so different processing requirements. Dave