dishwasher canning

Noah and I were returning from meeting a friend at the park, and I overheard my neighbor across the street talking about canning. I heard that she was making her tomato sauce so it would be ready to use, instead of just canning the tomatos by themselves.

So we walked across the street, and I told her about my eavesdropping and learned her hints. She uses the dishwasher to heat her jars, then pulls a few out at a time and fills them, tops them, and continues. She said she's never had a problem doing it this way. So, I did a little more research online, and DH and I gave this system a go.

For whatever reason our dishwasher seemed to spend 2 hours washing the newly purchased jars and bands, and my spaghetti sauce bubble away, and reduced itself significantly by the time the jars were in their drying cycle.

Our kitchen currently holds our 4 quarts of sauce, and 1 quart of plain crushed tomatos. There was about 3/4 of a jar leftover of tomatos, not enough to can, so we will have to use them up in some tasty recipe this week.

OH, did I mention this was our first time canning on our own? Dh is waiting for the lids to pop downstairs. Hope it works!