Sir Gawain and the Green....Tomato?

We knew it would likely happen. Yesterday while I was in the Foods lab preparing to teach for the day, an administrator brought in a ton of green tomatoes. You know, I thought...I have a lot of green tomatoes sitting out there as well.

The day went on and the foods teacher talked about doing a demo on fried green tomatoes. Yummy! Then, she said, I wonder if we could can them.

Why, yes. Yes we can.

I started the process today during my planning period, but it became obvious rather quickly that I wasn't going to get done in time for my last class. It just so happened, that my last class was during her planning period. I relocated my class to her room and we finished up Sir Gawain and the Green Knight while canning the green tomatoes. It made for a nice change of scenery.

Here are two of the tomato jars - I can't wait to try them to see if they're as good as the ones I had this summer. I also snapped a shot of one of the roasted garlic jelly jars from yesterday.
I've come to the conclusion that powdered pectin doesn't work worth a .....you can fill in the blank. I've never had a problem with anything using liquid pectin, but recipies that call for powder usually stay runny. Can I just substitute the two bags of gel for the one box of powder each time or do I have to stick with the variety the recipe calls for?

The morning comes early. Sweet canning dreams.