My Spaghetti Sauce Adventure...

On Monday my friend Linda and I picked tomatoes at a local pick your own tomatoes and raspberry farm. It is just a nice patch of land a lady in our town plants and then has an honor system where you put your money in a jar on her porch. I picked a little over 1 bushel [$10] and then came home to day of satisfying work.

I put my jars in the dishwasher before I left to pick so they were ready when I returned home and then I washed and cored the tomatoes.  My friend Judy, who lives in New York gave me a simple recipe for making spaghetti sauce. It is not too much work at all because you take the cored tomatoes and toss them in the blender to make a puree. It is quick and easy.

To 4 quarts of pureed tomatoes, you add 1 chopped onion [I just cut it up a bit and tossed it into the blender with the tomatoes so I didn't have to chop it.]

I assembled my spices and extra virgin olive oil and was ready to make the sauce.[I did add some fresh basil too, but I didn't have too much so I also had to add dried.]













Next I filled my HUGE pot and began to simmer the sauce, adding tomato paste and simmered some more.
I love my huge tulip shaped stainless stock pot. I don't use it often, but when I do I am so thankful I have such a great pot. 

After simmering, I put the some of the sauce in jars and fired up the pressure canner. I know my other pot is still full, and that is because I added more puree and herbs. A bushel of tomatoes makes a lot of puree!


After processing all my batches I was satisfied to see all the jars sealed and are ready for winter meals.

I included the recipe below in case anyone is interested. The making of the sauce goes pretty quickly. It takes a while to cook it down and process it, but that gave me time to clean up the kitchen and start dinner--Basil Fetuccini with marinara sauce, cheese and some local ground beef.

Delightful!

Take care,
Jill

FRESH SPAGHETTI [MARINARA] SAUCE

4 quarts of pureed tomatoes*, just wash, take out the core and put in a blender, skin and all

1 chopped onion [I put large pieces in the blender-a food processor would work great]

1/2 C olive oil

3T sugar

1-2 tsp garlic powder or a couple of cloves of crushed garlic

3 T parsley flakes

1-2 tsp basil, dried or fresh chopped

1-2 tsp oregano

2 T salt

       *Best combination is 1/2 Roma and half of a Big Boy type tomato

Cook 30 minutes on medium heat.

Add:

1- Twelve oz can of tomato paste [if not using Roma tomatoes, might want to increase this to 2 cans of tomato paste.]

Cook 45-60 minutes more at a steady simmer. Sauce will thicken nicely.

Yields 7-10 pints of sauce [depending on the tomatoes and how much tomato paste you put in].  Can at 10# pressure for 8 minutes. with about one bushel of tomatoes I made 4 batches or about 20 quarts of finished sauce.