Tag : Canning

August 14, 2012 / 1 Comment

The Best Darn Tomato Sauce You Will Ever Make!

We have been busy little bees around here. Tomato season is upon us, and though the tomatoes around here are lacking in size, they are not lacking in taste. My mother-in-law recently made lasagna with her homemade tomato sauce and we discovered something. My husband REALLY prefers her homemade sauce over the canned stuff from the store. This may sound like a “guys always like their momma’s cookin the best” situation, but it’s more than that. The canned stuff always messes up his stomach a little, and he never likes to do leftovers the next day, I have to wait a day before sending leftovers in his lunch. Not so with his mothers homemade stuff. I think it has to do with the fact that there are also carrots and onions in her recipe that help to counter the high acidity from the tomatoes. That’s my best guess at least.

Did I mention that it is D-e-l-i-c-i-o-u-s?!

The first batch we did we froze. Since our freezer is full of a recent frozen fruit purchase, we are canning the next batch. I think we will end up with 10 plus quarts of the tomato sauce. This is my first time canning and I’m so excited! Since its tomatoes there is no water involved, which is kind of a bummer since that is the part I’m really nervous about, but that will have to wait until next time.

 

This recipe is originally from Tupperware of all places. Back in the day when putting up food was still a normal part of life, Tupperware came out with their Square round freezer containers. They were trying to show how you could freeze your food instead of canning.

 

Tomato Sauce

 

You will need:

20 large tomatoes (or in our case, 7lbs of really small tomatoes), washed, cored, and cut into chunks

3 onions chopped (about 4 cups)

4 large carrots or 6 smaller ones (shredded or sliced)

8tsp Parsley

3T Sugar

2T Salt

3/4tsp Pepper

Place all the ingredients into a large pot. Slowly bring to a boil, stirring often.

Lower heat and simmer 45 minutes or until mixture is thickened.

Let cool slightly and then pour into blender or food processor. Start on low and work up to high speed until smooth.

If you are freezing- Pour into serving size containers and allow to cool completely before placing it in the freezer to prevent freezer burn. Secure seal, date it, and place in your freezer.

If you are canning- Return to pot and reheat. Pour into prepared jars, leaving room at the neck. Place sterile flat on and secure ring. Date it and place in your pantry.

Update: It’s probably best if you water bathe them in hot water. You can reheat, pour into the jar and just place them in your pantry, but you need to always pull from the bottom where it is hottest, and you risk them going bad if it wasn’t hot enough (that’s what happened to me. 5 jars of sauce down the drain. Made me sick.) It’s best to follow the instructions in “Ball’s Blue Book Guide to preserving” just to be safe. Sometimes old methods aren’t the best for beginners (like me!)

 

(Please note the amazon link is my affiliate link)

 

I am linking this to             The Morris Tribe Blog Carnival

August 22, 2011 / Leave a Comment

Canning and Other Such Things

 

I want so badly to start canning. I had big plans this year of all the different things I was going to can. But as I shared here, the garden didn’t go as planned. I do plan to do some canning this fall. I make tons of apple sauce in the fall and it gets consumed within the first few months. Usually I freeze it but this year I want to try canning some of it too. I need to at least double what I bought last year (which was three bushels!) so that I have enough for the whole year. Plus I want to make some apple butter and can that as well as some apple pie filling. Maybe some tomatoes if I happen to find someone with an over abundance of tomatoes that they’re trying to off load. We’ll see.

I’ve been looking for canning jars at garage sales but the only ones I’ve found were antiques that A. they wanted $2 a piece for (which is a very fare price for antique canning jars but when you can buy them new in the store for under $1 a jar it’s not such a good price) and B. you don’t actually want to can with them, they really are for show. Enter my aunt J. She had been following my sorry garden attempts via Facebook and my blog and thought I might be interested in some of the canning jars and paraphernalia that she was no longer using. Oh boy was I!

Yesterday I loaded up the girls and headed over to her house. She had three full shelves of canning supplies and I could have whatever I wanted. I got jars that were my grandmothers and jars that were my great grandmothers. I haven’t even taken the time to count how many I got, but got quite a few in all shapes and sizes. She also gave me her small and large pressure cookers as well as the large pot for warm bathes (those that are high acidity and don’t need to be pressure cooked). What a huge blessing! Just the jars alone would have easily been $50 new from the store and I won’t even get into how much it would have cost me for the pots.

Growing up, aunt J. was the aunt who made her own bread, grew her own garden and canned what she harvested to feed her six kids (four of which were very hungry boys) and knew practically every plant and it’s use in the surrounding forest. Visiting her house was a blast regardless of the fact that I was always out numbered 6 to 1 (her 4 oldest boys and my 2 brothers). I aspire to be as self sufficient as she is!

I left that day with the open offer that if I needed more jars I knew where they were and I was welcome to them. And since I don’ think I even took half of them there are plenty more should I actually get good at this gardening and canning thing and find myself running out. Though I probably won’t get very much canned this year, I am excited to practice this year and hopefully be a pro by next year!

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