Making the sauce went quite well, actually. If I'd know it was going to be that easy (and that I could get Victor to turn the crank on the Squeezo for me), I wouldn't have procrastinated it so much. I divided the work up over two days, which made it even easier. Here's the recipe I used and what I did:
This is a variation on the National Center for Home Food Preservation's Spaghetti Sauce without Meat recipe.
Basic Pasta Sauce - printable version
15 lbs tomatoes (about 40 medium sized ~6 oz tomatoes)
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1/2 cup chopped onions
1/2 cup green pepper
1 lb fresh mushrooms, sliced (optional)
4 cloves garlic, minced
2-1/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp minced fresh oregano
2 tbsp minced parsley
1 tbsp minced fresh basil
1 tsp black pepper
2 tbsp brown sugar
Yield - About 6 pints
Step 1 (I did this the night before) - Cut the tomatoes into quarters. Place in a large stock pot. If the tomatoes aren't very juicy put a little bit of water in the bottom of the pan (a cup or less) just so the tomatoes on the bottom don't scorch before they start producing juice. Bring tomatoes to a rolling boil and cook for 20 minutes. Turn off heat and allow to cool slightly.
Step 2 (I did this the night before, too) - Put the tomatoes through a food mill or sieve and place back into the large stockpot. I use a Squeezo Strainer (thanks MOM!) which works like a dream. My tomatoes resembled tomato juice or tomato soup when I was done. I was skeptical that this would turn into sauce, but it absolutely did by the end. At this point I put my stockpot of tomatoes into the fridge because it was late and I was tired.
Step 3 (The next morning for me) - Saute the onions, peppers, and mushrooms (optional) in the oil until tender. Towards the end of the cooking time, add the garlic. This is so the garlic doesn't get burned and bitter. Stir the cooked vegetables into the tomatoes in the stock pot.
Step 4 - Chop up the herbs and add them along with the salt, pepper, and sugar to the tomatoes.
Step 5 - Bring the tomato mixture to a boil. Reduce the heat so that you get a low, not too excited, boil. Boil the sauce, stirring occasionally, until it reduces to the texture and consistency you like for pasta sauce. This took me about 5 hours, stirring every half hour or so.
Step 6 - You can either freeze or can your sauce. Freeze in airtight containers or food saver bags. Can in a pressure canner at 11 pounds of pressure; 20 minutes for pints, 25 minutes for quarts.
So, that's how to make it. Here's what I thought of the end product. I found that it had a nice cooked tomato taste, but didn't have enough spice to it. If I make it again I'll probably double the amount of the fresh herbs I used.
I also wasn't impressed much by the yield. It took a lot of tomatoes to produce 6 pints of sauce. It wasn't particularly cost effective. The tomatoes alone cost me about $7.00 and produced 96 ounces of sauce. I can regularly find 28 ounce jars of pasta sauce on sale for $1.50 a jar. I could get 4 - 28 ounce jars for that $7.00 which is 112 ounces. And that wouldn't require much work. I go to the store anyway. The key money saver would be home grown tomatoes, which I'm going to attempt this year. I'm not sure how well they'll do here in Arizona but I'm going to try. The key, I've been told, is that Arizona Shade (with some morning sun) equals Full Sun everywhere else. Otherwise, the tomatoes get hot inside and burst their skins before you can pick them.
I will most likely be trying this process again. I want to use Roma Tomatoes and see if they produce less juice that has to be reduced and therefore more sauce yeild. The tomatoes that we got on the good deal by the case were round and more juicy.
Click here for a printable version of the recipe without all my commentary.
Are you going to give it a try? Let me know how yours turns out!
Thanks for playing!
Jan
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