The thing about canning and preserving is when you first start out, you put up almost anything you can get your hands on. After a while, you finally realize and say to yourself, “What am I gonna do with 20 jars of hot-dog relish?” That’s where friends come in, right?
Eventually, even your friends are like, “What am I gonna do with all this hot-dog relish?” So, over time you learn to make the recipes you REALLY like and use regularly, and just as importantly, the ones your friends REALLY like too.
There are a gazillion recipes out there for home-canned tomato sauce, but I really like this one from "The Complete Book of Small-Batch Preserving"; I’ve talked about it before. I’ve used this sauce on pasta, in soups, pizza, even pot-roasts.
It’s a very versatile and delicious sauce, and only the most tasty and cherished home-grown tomatoes get the honor of being used to make it. I don't even bother making other tomato sauces because this is so good!
It's so hard to come by a really good, honest-to-god homegrown tomato down here unless you grow it yourself, which is what I do, twice a year. One of these days, when I have tomatoes to spare (is that even possible?), I'm gonna have to be a little more adventurous!
Chunky Basil Pasta Sauce
Recipe Source: The Complete Book of Small-Batch Preserving
Yield: 8 cups
8 cups (2 L) coarsely chopped, peeled tomatoes (about 9-12 tomatoes)
1 cup chopped onion
3 cloves garlic
2/3 cup red wine
1/3 cup red wine vinegar (5 % strength)
1/2 cup chopped fresh basil
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
1 teaspoon pickling salt
1/2 teaspoon granulated sugar
1 6-oz/156 mL) can tomato paste
Combine tomatoes, onion, garlic, wine, vinegar, basil, parsley, salt, sugar and tomato paste in a very large non-reactive pan. Bring to a boil over high heat, reduce heat to low and simmer, uncovered, for 40 minutes or until mixture reaches desired consistency, stirring frequently.
Remove hot jars from canner and ladle sauce into jars to within 1/2 inch (1 cm) of rim (head space). Process 35 minutes for pint (500 mL) jars and 40 minutes for quart (1 L) jars in a BWB.
13 comments:
My hubby sent me your link, we have tomatoes coming out of our ears with more to be picked! I'm looking forward to trying this recipe but I will be freezing my sauce. Thanks for the post!
Anon,
Even when frozen, this makes an awesome, all- around sauce. Lucky you to have all those tomatoes!
I'm definitely trying this, thank you!
Mimi, definitely give it a try; it's an awesome sauce...especially this time of year when all the produce is going gangbusters!
I'm getting two boxes of tomatoes this weekend - this is definitely on my list to try!
I especially like this as a pizza sauce!
This sounds like a very nice, simple, all-purpose sauce. Thanks! I'm definitely going to try it!
Daisy, it sounds like you're going to be a busy bee this weekend!
Joy, I like to simmer and reduce this down a bit more and use as a pizza sauce too! I add a bit of fennel to it on the pizza.
Ap269, I know you're going to love it!
I'm the founder/moderator for Punk Domestics (www.punkdomestics.com), a community site for those of use obsessed with, er, interested in DIY food. It's sort of like Tastespotting, but specific to the niche. I'd love for you to submit this to the site. Good stuff!
Did you add the lemon juice at the end? Or is the vinegar enough to acidify the tomatoes??
Eve,
No, the red wine vinegar and red wine are more than enough acidity needed for this recipe.
I made two batches of this yesterday; one with a mix of romas and red heirloms; the other with all yellow and orange tomatoes. Both were fantastic!
I'm out of red wine. Will it work without it?
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