Thanks, Dave. Although mayhaws do grow in bogs and wetlands, they also grow beautifully in well-drained soil. We are fortunate to have good sandy loam at our place, even though most of our area has awful black gumbo clay. My parents told stories of going with their parents to scoop up the mayhaws with nets from the wet, boggy areas, but they planted mayhaws in their yard many years ago. They make a very tasty, unique jelly that is crystal clear deep red. The mayhaw is very tart. It's a beautiful tree, especially in the spring when it is full of white blooms. Since I forget that other parts of the country may not know what a mayhaw is, I found this off the mayhaw.org website: "The mayhaw (crataegus opaca) is a fruit about 1/2" to 1" in diameter. Ripe from mid-April through early May, its fruit color varies from bright red to reddish yellow. It is not a desirable berry for eating raw." "The mayhaw is a Hawthorne native to the southeastern states that is normally a 20 - 30 foot tree at maturity. Usually found in low, wet, slightly acid areas, mayhaws produce best on good upland soils in full sun." "The mayhaw normally flowers in February and March. Ball-shaped at maturity, the mayhaw tree makes a beautiful ornamental." "Historically, Mayhaws have been harvested in backwoods sloughs, swamps, and river bottoms. Boats are sometimes utilized in the harvest of wild mayhaws. Limbs are shaken over the boat and nets are used to scoop them out of the water. Accessibility has dwindled over the years as developers have cleared the woodlands. Commercial and home orchards are now being created with grafted mayhaws." My grandmother used to make a delicious mayhaw cake, which was about 6-8 very thin layers of plain cake and mayhaw jelly. While still warm, she used a toothpick to poke holes in the first layer, pour warm melted mayhaw jelly over it, added the second layer, poked holes, poured jelly, and repeated until finished. The top layer was dusted with powdered sugar. I'm making my mouth water just thinking about it! I have a feeling I won't have enough juice left to can it for drinking. :-) Jill

Make sure to add the lemon juice even though you think there's enough acid in the liquid. But first - can you post a picture of your salsa jars? I know you don't even want to think about reprocessing 95 pints, but someone should take a look and make sure there's enough liquid. Carol and Dave helped reassure me that my tomato sauce was liquid enough. Do you have a "mound" of chopped veggies sitting above the liquid in the jars? Does it move and go under the liquid when you twist the jar? I'm trying to picture liquid 3/4 of the way up the jar and the image is not reassuring. You might need to add that liquid back in and reprocess (at least the ones done in the last 24 hours). What recipe did you follow? I don't know of a recipe that calls for straining the salsa after it's cooked and before putting it in the jars - if there's any straining, it's done when you peel and chop the tomatoes but a lot of recipes don't even do that (b/c the tomato juice and seeds are acidic). This post was edited by ajsmama on Sun, Aug 31, 14 at 16:38

Someone clued me to freezing tomatoes hen we had too many to eat and not enough for a batch. I love it! So much easier than the vittorio strainer or food mill. I wash and core, slice off the blemishes, and freeze in a bag. When time allows or the freezer is full, just slip off the skins, whiz in a blender, and can the juice. No cold break in the finished juice and very little mess. Seems to eliminate some excess water as well. Use the tomato water for pasta cooking, or especially soup or chili water. I freeze in flat bags because im too cheap to spend a lid.

I ended up taking an early afternoon nap (didn't sleep well last night), after finishing clean-up this morning -- I appreciate the responses! My son dug into the cheese-only lasagne for lunch, so there isn't even enough left to warrant freezing. (I'm glad, since I also wasn't sure about re-freezing. While it was previously frozen, it was previously frozen in its pre-baked state.) The cake (had a generous slice for breakfast) was a BIG round Costco cake (7 pounds -- can you imagine?) The cake (and cookies) must be frozen to help resist temptation (yeah, right - I can still hear it calling me from the freezer). Wish I could share it with y'all. Off to wrap the remaining (meat) lasagne, and the chicken breast -- which I am hoping can be defrosted and eaten as is, otherwise it will be used for fajita recipes or the like. I've nothing against feeding wild-life this time of year, but I don't want to encourage the deer - as they are a HUGE problem during planting season. Thanks again everyone! Maura (who wishes she had a food-saver)