Thursday, August 18, 2011

Canning Spaghetti Sauce

What to do with all those tomatoes?

My favorite way to use them up is by making my own homemade spaghetti sauce. This recipe is from my aunt and it's the one I've been using for years. Everyone loves it!

Homemade Spaghetti Sauce

1/2 a bushel of tomatoes
4-5 cloves of garlic (I used minced out of a jar.)
6-7 onions
4 hot peppers ( I use mild banana peppers.)
1/2 cup olive oil
8 (6oz.) cans of tomato paste
1/4 cup salt
1 tsp. basil
1 tsp. oregano
1 tsp. italian seasoning
1 tsp. rosemary ( I leave this out!)
3/4 cup sugar (more or less depending on your taste)

Cook tomatoes in a large stockpot until tender.
Run tomatoes through a food mill to remove seeds and skins.
Measure out 10 quarts of juice into a large stockpot.
Add garlic and place back on stove to cook.
While juice is cooking, grind up the onions and peppers. (I use my mini-chopper for this.)
Place them in a small saucepan and add the olive oil.
Cook for about 1/2 hour until they are nice and tender.
Now you can add the pepper/onion/oil mixture to the juice but be careful so as to not splatter yourself!
Add the remaining ingredients and stir well.
It will take a bit of stirring to get all that paste mixed in good.
Boil all ingredients for 40 minutes without a lid on.
While waiting for sauce to cook down you can get your canning jars & utensils ready. (Clean & boil jars)
Ladle sauce into jars, add lids and place jars into a water bath canner.
Fill canner with water, making sure that it covers the tops of the jars by at least an inch.
Place lid on canner and bring to a boil.
Let boil for 40 minutes.
Remove jars and let cool.


3 comments:

Carmen S. said...

I'm not a canner..LOL, you may remember a few of my attempts, looks delicious though! Something is eating big holes in mine, not sure if it's the deer or raccoons so I've been picking them before they're quite ripe and bringing them inside. We had a herd of deer out back last night, must have been 8 or 9 of them...argh!!!!

Granny Sue said...

Carmen, it might be a box turtle. They like to eat holes in ripe tomatoes.

Jessica, the sauce looks great! I used to make mine but now I just make it when I make spaghetti and can the tomatoes plain. Lazy, aren't I?

Farmchick said...

So good......nothing better than your own sauce. :) Come say hi.