AHAHHAHAAA! We win!
We got a letter from the unemployment office which stated, basically, that ISU did not provide any evidence that Brian was terminated due to his performance (which would invalidate our unemployment claim). In other words, they've finally (in at least one place) admitted that Brian's non-rehire was not due to him. *sigh* That's very heartening.
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Okay, I have found that a 20# box yields about 2 batches of jars for me, where a "batch" is 7 pints (since that's how much either my waterbath canner or my pressure cooker holds). If I do sauce, it's about one batch of sauce. For diced tomatoes (which is what I'll be doing with these guys) my procedure is as follows:
1. Cut up all tomatoes into chunks (I don't go wacky on small dice here--usually about 1/2" to 3/4" dice). Plunk them (seeds & all) into big-ass pot. When done, take compost out ASAP or be killed in the night by mutant fruit flies.
2. Put big-ass pot onto burner and begin heating to near-boil. If you've got a pretty good pot (and we, in fact, have an All-Clad, which is just as good as you can get) you don't have to worry too much about stirring it. If you don't have a good pot, use med-low heat and stir frequently.
3. Start water bath canner on other burner (I've sometimes had this going already during the cutting phase). Put jars in to sterilize.
4. Once everything is good & hot, take out jars, pack, etc., and put them in the canner.
5. Turn off heat on remaining tomatoes until ready to start next batch at step #3. Probably cut up more tomatoes in the intervening time.
6. At some point, get sick & tired of the whole bloody show and set it all aside till the next day. I usually just leave the uncanned tomatoes in the pot on the stove, covered, with the heat off. I figure, I'm going to bring them to a boil, and then subject them to the water bath, for several hours the following day, so not much can happen, right?
The same basic procedure applies if I were using my pressure canner, but I've seen opinions that pressure canners do more damage to cut up tomatoes than water bath canners do. But I've done both, and they both work fine.
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