Making Sauce

Last year was the first year we canned our own sauce.  We loved Brian's mom's recipe so went with that and made 32 quarts.  We ran out through the year and it's impossible to buy a sauce as tasty, so we were determined to make even more batches this year in hopes that we don't run out.  So the total came to 52 quarts and 10 pints of our sauce.  That was made in 5 different batches.  It's a ton of work, but the benefits out weigh the pain of it.  We get to eat fresh, delicious, homemade sauce all year long.  Made with vegetables all straight out of the garden.  We grow our tomatoes, green peppers, onions, and hot peppers, but you could always go and buy yourself enough to do a batch of sauce.  If you already have a garden this is a great way to use up all that produce that comes on all at once!  We still have tons of tomatoes and everything, so we'll be making salsa next week!  This is definitely a family affair.  I couldn't do all this by myself, nor would I want to.  My husband and I make a good team and seem to have got a system going.  The kids both love squeezing the tomatoes!

Here is the recipe we use-

Ingredients:
1/2 bushel of ripe tomatoes
1/2 cup oil (or less)
3 lbs onions
2 garlic bulbs
6 green peppers
4 hot Hungarian wax peppers
4 sweet banana peppers
1/2 of one of the huge cans of tomato paste (it's says 6lb 5 oz on the label)
1 1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup salt
1 TB basil
2 TB oregano

Chop up the peppers, onions and garlic in a food processor.  Cook in oil for about 1/2 til veggies are tender.  Meanwhile squeeze your tomatoes, filling a 14 quart pot with the juice.  We like to then squeeze the cooked veggies through, because we don't like a chunky sauce.  You could do it either way.  We then add that juice into the sauce also.  We cook it down and then add in the spices and paste.  The more you cook it down the less paste you need.

We can it using a pressure cooker, we process the pints and quarts at 11 lbs pressure for 15 minutes.  Fill  the jars leaving 1/2 inch head space.   Remember it is so important to follow these directions so that you are preserving your sauce properly. 



Fresh Tomatoes straight from our garden.



Fresh green bell peppers, hot Hungarian wax peppers, sweet banana peppers, and onions.




Hard to believe it goes from this to that.




Our big helper!



Our little helper!



Squeezing out all that tomato goodness!







Cooking the vegetables down on the stove in a cast iron skillet.



Mmm, smells SO good!



Everything in the pot!



And our final count. 52 quarts and 10 pints. We store these on a shelf in the basement.