Just maters: slice into quarters, put in pot, bring to a boil, put boiling hot maters and mater juice into jars, wipe for a good seal, screw down tightly, submerge jars completely in boiling water for 30-40 minutes.

If you’re less lazy than me then skinning/seeding is probably good. I don’t mind skin and seeds in the kinds of sauces or soups I’d make, but they are better without.

I haven’t worried too much about temps and didn’t get sick last year. I’ve precooked all the salsa or pasta sauces I’ve made. For green beans I put them in the jar raw and poor boiling 50/50 water & vinegar over them. I made some deliciously spicy pickled green beans by adding some Dave’s Insanity sauce to the mix. I planted a West Indian Gherkin but have had trouble getting cukes to grow well in my clay soil: I’m seeing some flowers now though. Hopefully I can get some pickled gherkins too.

And all that being said, we’ve never actually canned, believe it or not. We tend to use up everything in our garden (you can keep tomatoes in a dark box and use them into December). We do need to hit the Farmer’s Market *soon* and get some canning action on though.

The one caveat to the standard boil method, btw, is the temperature. You can get your pressure cooker up to 250, while your standard setup only gets to 212. I’ve read that 240 is the magic number for killing all the stuff you don’t want–so pressure canning is supposed to be a better longterm and/or uncooked option (for salsa, for instance).

If I can’t be certain of no explosions, I’ll probably need a canning tutorial from you, please and thank you.

I’ve found the submerge-jar-in-boiling-water-for-30mins method to be perfectly effective but wonder if the pressure cooker would be quicker.