I never see peaches in halves or sliced that have the skins still on, or even if home canned. They do tend to loosen, but end up as little clumps of unidentifable mush. Some canning makers, use high pressure water jets to peel. Apricots, which are a bit less 'fuzzy' are a bit more palletable as to texture when home canned. As to potatoes, baked is great if they are not peeled. If I had not peeled my dried potato slices, they would have ended up with lots of strands of brown within the slices, especially after they rehydrate. Beets, that I prepare, are always cooked with the skins on, then are peeled. I only partially cook them when I plan to pickle them. If I leave the peels on, I can see a lot of sand that is settling to the bottom of the pot, or jars. Some skins just don't make for a nice canning, unless your seriously into high fiber foods and don't mind pulling out loose skins between your teeth. When I can tomatoes, if I leave skins on, they roll up into little red twigs and tend to make the smooth appearance or a tomato sauce look a bit odd. Closing your eyes and chewing well is fine for some. As already pointed out, bacteria of all kinds can still linger on the surface of items you can. If you buy fresh store bought foods and they are sprayed with pesticides and fungucides, how much go into your canned product? I would expect the levels to be quite high if skins are left on..

Best as I understand the difference between pico and salsa is that pico isn't cooked at all and uses no vinegar. So the closest I have come to pico (and it isn't real of course because it is cooked when canned) is a modification of the NCHFP Tomato and Green Chile Salsa. I used jalapenos instead of chilies, left out the garlic, cumin, subbed cilantro for the oregano, and used lime juice for 1/2 the vinegar called for. Drain well and chill well before serving. Not great but not bad either. Dave Here is a link that might be useful: NCHFP Tomato Green Chili Salsa

I don't pressure can tomatoes anymore because I don't like the way they look. The tomatoes settle to the bottom and there is a 2 inch space at the top. When I HWB, the tomatoes are at the top and there may be an inch of liquid at the bottom. I know it takes longer but I don't care. So far this summer I've canned 56 quarts of tomatoes and every one sealed. I do not boil the lids, only wash in soapy water and run under hot and place on jars. I leave 1 inch head-space as that is what the Ball Blue Book says to do. As far as the seal on the lids, I think the material they are using today is much more reliable than years ago. The only lids I've used this year are Golden Harvest as I bought enough to can 1,400 jars of something.

I didn't do them last night since I let DD stay up late to watch a Halloween special and then didn't want to be up til 11PM canning. Took me a little while longer to prep and pack the jars (I'd cut up the meat last night and left in a ziploc bag in the fridge). Prepped 4 jars but then needed another - and I hope I didn't pack them too tight, I didn't have enough for a 6th pint so I opened the first 4 jars, put the lids back in hot water (Ball demo on green beans they said not necessary but some of my lids were older) and kind of pushed down the cubes where I saw a big space (first couple of handfuls were just dropped in) so I could fit a little more in each jar, then wiped rims and put the lids back on. I know this is usually frowned upon, you don't want to pack too tightly, but since Dave said about 1 lb per pint and I got 0.8 lbs (4lbs 1 3/4 oz, including weight of gallon bag, packed into 5 pints with 1" HS) I figured it was OK. If I had had 5 lbs I would have gone for 6 jars. Venting now - since I'm at 997ft I'm doing 10lb weight for 75 minutes. I'll post pix when they're out of the canner so you all can let me know if they were packed correctly. And since I haven't processed anything for this long yet, and my burner cycles, I'm going to stay in the kitchen and keep checking the gauge (as an indicator - it seemed to be accurate, read 10.5-11lbs for 10 lb weight) as well as listening to weight rock. I've got the burner set on 8 so it might take a little while to vent/come to pressure but I don't want to be adjusting it, even with the weight set, since if I turn it too low I'm afraid the burner will cycle and it will drop below 10 psig.