Usually when I make
any kind of tomato based sauce my wife helps me core, blanch and peel
the tomatoes to remove the skins. However, when we make this sauce we
simply core the tomatoes and remove any blemishes and cut them in
halves or quarters with the skins on. Then, I throw them in my 15
year old Oster shaft driven blender and puree the heck out of them.
Now I have to say that this blender is a beast, it will crush ice
with ease and will puree just about any vegetable out there with a
little liquid. When we make this sauce it purees the tomatoes so well
you cannot even tell that they are any skins in the sauce when it is
cooked.
This sauce is our
short on time, have to many vegetables from the garden sauce, hence
the name 'Garden Variety'. It is packed full of vegetables because I
puree them all and if I did not tell you, you would never even know
there were in there. And that's great, because I am a big texture
eater and just cannot eat cooked squash which my wife loves, so I
have to hide my veggies from myself while increasing the nutrient
value of the sauce. I know kinda sounds moronic and childish, that a
53 year old man has to hide his vegetables in order to eat them, but
it is what it is.
The recipe
There is nothing
really fancy about this recipe, it is pretty much a basic spaghetti
sauce recipe with a few of my own personal tweaks. This is our base
recipe, if we have zucchini squash we add it, last year we used
banana peppers instead of bell peppers because we had a bigger crop
of them as opposed to our bell peppers. If you have them and you like
mushrooms, add 1lb fresh mushrooms sliced, or 1 cup of chopped celery
(when used, I have to puree it because my grandson does not like it, and he never
knows it's there). Anyway, I digress here is the recipe we use a lot,
it has served us well and it will do the same for you. It shares some
ingredients from both the 'Spaghetti Sauce' recipe found in the USDA
Complete Guide To Home Canning (section 3, page 14), and the 'Italian
Tomato Sauce' found in The Ball Blue Book (in the 2011 version it is
on page 74).
20 – 25lbs
assorted tomatoes
6 yellow squash (8
to 10” in length), peeled and cubed
3 green bell
peppers, seeded and diced
2 large onions,
diced
¼ cup granulated
sugar (optional)
4 tablespoons
garlic, minced
2 tablespoons salt
1 tablespoon
marjoram
4 teaspoons basil
4 teaspoons oregano
4 teaspoons parsley
2 teaspoons black
pepper
2 teaspoons red
pepper flakes
2 bay leaves
Core and dice all of
your tomatoes and puree them in your blender and add them to your
stockpot. Any liquid that you have leftover from when you were
dicing the tomatoes goes into the stock pot as well. Take the time to
make sure you have a big enough stockpot before you get started,
having to wash extra dishes is a pain in the backside. I use a 15
quart granite ware stockpot that I purchased at Wal-Mart which you
can still purchase for less than $20, so if you do not have one, get
one.
Chef's Note: You
want to avoid using an aluminum stockpots because high acid foods
such as tomatoes can cause a metallic taste to be leeched from the
aluminum into the food you are preparing.
Peel and dice the
yellow squash and in small batches, add it to the blender with a
little of the pureed tomatoes (the liquid makes it easier to puree
the squash) and process until all the squash is pureed. Then core,
seed and dice the bell peppers and set them aside, dice the onions as
well. Then process the onions and bell peppers in your blender until
they are pureed as well.
Chef's Note: If you
want, you can leave the onions and bell peppers as small dice, but
you should definitely liquefy the squash. The USDA has concerns that
some yellow squash may possibly contain harmful bacteria and does not
recommend that it be canned in either the sliced or in cubed form. In
this recipe, we are going to be removing the skin, pureeing the
squash and cooking it in a tomato based sauce for about 2 hours. I
bring the sauce a rolling boil then cook it for 10 to 15 minutes
before reducing the heat to kill any bacteria that might be present
(not likely since we grow our own, but hey safety first). Note that
the Center For Disease Control CDC states that boiling a liquid for 1
to 3 minutes (depending on altitude) will kill all pathogens.
Add the remaining
ingredients to your stockpot (except the sugar) and bring to a
rolling boil and cook at this level for 10 minutes, make sure you
stir the sauce frequently during this time to keep it from scorching,
especially if you have a thin bottomed stockpot. After 10 minutes,
reduce the heat to low, cover your stockpot and cook for 60 minutes.
After you have cooked the sauce for 60 minutes begin adding the sugar
to get the desired sweetness you and your family like. Usually, I
just dump it all in, but individual preferences vary so go slow, you
cannot remove the sugar if you the sauce too sweet for your tastes.
Thickening Your
Sauce (The Crossroads)
At this point you
have two options to thicken your spaghetti sauce. The first option
takes the longest and is preferred by some canners and is recommended
by the USDA as well. That option is to cook the sauce until it is
reduced by about half and thick enough to be served directly over
pasta. Cooking times may vary depending on the moisture content of
the tomatoes and associated vegetables used in the sauce. The second
option is to use canned tomato paste. I know, I know, I hear the
gnashing of teeth and the howls of canners venting their rage against
the idea of using a commercial product to thicken there prized home
made spaghetti sauce. So call me a blasphemer, but after 60 minutes of cooking the sauce I add 2 (6-ounce) cans of
tomato paste to my stockpot and get ready to process it into
quart jars in my weighted gauge pressure canner.
If you decide to use
tomato paste, the easiest way to incorporate it into your sauce it to
place half of can of tomato paste in a medium sized bowl, then ladle
some of the hot spaghetti sauce into the bowl and mix with a wire
whisk. Then add the contents of the bowl to your stockpot. Repeat as
many times as necessary until you have added all the tomato paste.
This keeps the tomato paste from sinking to the bottom of the
stockpot an not getting thoroughly integrated into the spaghetti
sauce. I have presented you two options to thicken your pasta sauce,
the path you choose is up to you, they both work equally well, and
unless you tell someone they will never be the wiser.
Chef's Note: Even
after I add the tomato paste, my sauce is a little thin, I like to
can it that way and then when I make spaghetti I simmer it uncovered
to reduce any additional moisture. I would rather have my sauce a
little thiner so that I can process it safely than get it to thick.
Processing The Sauce
(10lbs PSI)
While tomatoes may
be a considered a high acid food, the addition of other ingredients
in the sauce has the potential to reduce the pH making it dangerously
close to the low-acid food line. Therefore, in order to maintain safe
canning practises, this sauce needs to processed in either a weighted
gauge or dial gauge pressure canner. Once the sauce has reached the
desired consistency, reduce the heat to simmer or 'keep warm' dial on
your burner if you have one to keep it hot.
Ladle the hot sauce
into hot jars leaving about 1-inch of headspace (do not forgot to remove the bay leaves). Remove any air
bubbles and adjust headspace as necessary. Apply the two-piece lids
and bands and place in your pressure canner and process pints for 20
minutes and quarts for 25 minutes at 10lbs of pressure (PSI).
Chef's Note: If you
add meat to this sauce, then you must process it just as you would
any meat product. Pints for 75 minutes, and quarts for 90 minutes at
10lbs of pressure (PSI).
Conclusion
This spaghetti sauce
recipe is extremely flexible and easy to make, and just about
everyone I know enjoys a good meal with spaghetti and garlic bread.
The thing that we like most about this recipe is that it allows us to
use whatever vegetables we have on hand from the garden to enhance
not only the flavor, but the nutrient content of the sauce. In
addition, adding additional veggies increases the yield of the sauce
making it go further. If you find that you do not have the individual
dried spices in your pantry, simply substitute 4 tablespoons of
'Italian Seasoning', if you like your sauce a little spicy, add 1
tablespoon of red pepper flakes, one of my favorite additions is 2
teaspoons of fennel seeds which I pulverize in my mortar and pestle.
Most additions you
can make without any concerns that it will affect the processing time
of the sauce in your pressure canner. The one exception to this rule
is if you add any type of ground meat to your spaghetti sauce then
you will have to process the sauce for an extended amount of time as
recommended by the USDA. Therefore, the addition of meat to your
sauce require that pints must be pressure canned for 75 minutes, and
quarts for 90 minutes at 10lbs of pressure (PSI).
Other Canning
Articles On Our Blog:
In-depth Articles
About How To Can On Our Blog:
References:
Ball Blue Book Guide
To Preserving (2011)
