Saving vegetable scraps in the freezer to make stock is an idea that has never entered my head! I may have to give that a try. That seems like an awfully long processing time for a pressure canner. I'd have to have a good book at hand to read while I babysat the canner; mine has to be constantly monitored because it refuses to maintain a steady pressure.
You should save your veggie scraps they make a nice stock for soups. Pressure canners are fussy, mine fluctuates for the first half hour until I get it to the right temp, lol. I usually work on a puzzle when canning since I have to watch it so closely.
That's another good idea for passing the time. I just have to be careful I don't get too absorbed in what I am reading and forget to keep an eye on the gauge. I sit in a kitchen chair in front of the stove so I can glance up at it. I once borrowed a new canner from a neighbor for some reason. I think it was an All American brand. The pressure stayed right where I wanted it to, and it was wonderful. If I was just starting out as a young person, I would have run out and bought one just like it. But I doubt if I'll be doing enough canning in the next 10 years or so to justify spending $400 on a new pressure canner.
I totally agree, $400 is a lot of money but I know everyone loves them. I'm good with mine, I have two now. One is over 30 + years old, the new one I bought last year, and I can do a double layer of half-pints which really cuts down on time. I put up a lot every year so having them both makes life a bit easier when I do large batches. The tomatoes will be coming in hard this week with the next heat wave. And it begins, lol. Have fun in the kitchen.
I somehow ended up with two pressure canners, too, and occasionally run both at the same time, except then I have to keep track of which timer is for which canner, because they never get started at the exact same time. Ha ha! One is probably 30 years old, the other maybe 15-20. I don't really remember when I got them. I started out 40 years ago with my mother's really old pressure canner that had 5, 10, and 15 pound weights to put on it. You probably remember those, too.
I won't be dealing with tomatoes for quite some time yet. They don't ripen up as quickly here as they did when we lived in Minnesota, perhaps because it isn't as humid and the nights here are cooler. There have been some years when I only got one or two red tomatoes before the frosts got hard and I had to bring in all the green ones and wait for them to ripen in the house. On the other hand, the nice thing about that is I end up canning tomato things when it's cooler weather!