This is my recipe that I use. It will not follow the methodology of any canning book. Select tomatoes that will fit through the top of a widemouth quart jar. CANNED FRIED GREEN TOMATOES Core and cut green tomatoes into fat 3/4 inch slices and soak overnight in an acid - saltwater mixture (one cup of pickling salt and ½ cup of lemon juice to each gallon of spring water). Make sure all of the tomatoes are covered with the mixture. In the morning drain the tomatoes. Rinse with cold spring water, drain, and place slices in jars. To each quart of tomatoes: cover with two tablespoons of lemon juice and fill to within a ½ inch of jar top with spring water. Wipe jars and seal. Cold pack and process 10 minutes after a lot of steam comes out from around canner lid. Do not lift canner lid while water is boiling. To Fry: Drain. Place in cold water in refrigerator for two hours and then roll in egg and seasoned flour and fry like fresh green tomatoes.

It might just be too warm!! Go figure!! My tomatoes were planted in May and because my greenhouse was too warm throughout the summer they are just starting to ripen now. Check this link on Tomato Ripening: http://cvp.cce.cornell.edu/submission.php?id=91 If you can't open the link, the most important info is this "The optimum temperature for ripening tomatoes is 70 to 75F. When temperatures exceed 85 to 90 F, the ripening process slows significantly or even stops."

Have you posted at the harvest forum? They can give you some great canning tips. They (and I) always recommend the Ball Blue Book of canning - if you don't have a copy, you should pick one up, it's a great resource. These are the steps I always follow, I find that it's a good formula and always works for me. Hopefully it's not too much information - I'm probably being too thorough, but better safe than sorry. 1. Wash jars. Wash rings, rinse new lids. Put lids in a small saucepan with water on "low" so they get warm and the rubber becomes soft for canning. I set up a workstation - basically a kitchen towel spread on the counter next to my stove to set jars on while I fill them, and keep the rings at a corner of the towel, within reach. The rings don't have to be hot. I also dampen a paper towel for wiping the jar rims clean before putting lids on, and keep that handy on one side of the towel. 2. Put jars in a big canning pot**, filled so that the jars are covered with 2 inches of water. The jars will be full of water, which will sterilize them as they heat. Put the lid on the canner (if you have a pressure canner, just set it on, don't tighten). 3. Bring water in canner to a high simmer, while preparing food for canning. I usually crank the heat to high and turn it back when I hear it starting to boil. 4. When food is ready to be canned, the water in the canner should be plenty hot, so it will come back to a boil quickly. If it's not, keep your food at the ready. (You want those jars to be sterile if you're heating them in the water.) 5. Pull a jar out of the canner using a jar lifter, and carefully pour the hot water from it into the sink. I have my own angle technique that works - just be careful when you do this, because you pretty much have to pour the water toward you to keep the jar in hand with the lifter. Practicing with cold water isn't a bad plan if you haven't done the pour before. :) Or if you're more sensible than I am, you might set the jar down for a moment on your towel, then pick it up again from the side with the lifter and empty it that way. 6. Fill the jar with food to be canned, wipe the rim, put a lid on, then put a ring on. Tighten the ring to finger tight - it should be snug but not super tight. (All the ring does is apply a little pressure so that there is good contact between the lid's sealant and the jar rim - it doesn't hold the lid on; the natural vacuum will do that.) 7. Put filled jar back into canner, and pull the next empty jar. Repeat steps 5-6 until all jars are full. I do these steps as quickly (but carefully) as possible so that the first jar sitting in the hot water doesn't end up with soft pickles. 8. Put lid on canner when all jars are filled. Bring back up to a boil (should only take a few minutes, since the water has been simmering the whole time). Start timing when the boil starts, and pull the jars when the timer goes off. If pressure canning, you would wait 5 minutes (possibly more) after the timer goes off to pull out the jars. **If you're lucky enough to have a dishwasher, you can put the jars in there on sani-cycle and it will keep them hot as long as it's closed. Still, you'll have to be sure to get the canner simmering with enough water to cover the filled jars by 2 inches, and starting the heating while you're prepping food is good timing. With a dishwasher you won't have to deal with pouring hot water down the sink. That's how my mom always canned. I wish my husband would hitch up our dishwasher. Someday...

They do go through a pale color on their way from green to red. They also get softer. Once the greenest green has faded to that whitish color, they're not far from ripening. They will actually continue to ripen on their own at that point. And they will still be flavorful. The skin is still smooth, just pale in color. Sun scald looks like a lesion and has a rougher texture. Reminds me of being blistered from sunburn when I was young and didn't know any better. Doesn't sound like what you have. I found this summer that the greenest hardest tomatoes were easiest to process when shredding for relishes. The ones that were past that greenest stage turning pale into pinkish were softer and had to be diced with a knife instead of being processed on the grater. You want solid bits, after all, not sauce. For relishes and mincemeats, especially.