Okay, it's OCTOBER and we're still (finally) getting tomatoes.
Yesterday I finished picking the tomatoes and decided that I probably had enough to do either tomato sauce or diced tomatoes (I canned a few jars of tomato soup a couple of weeks ago). I opted for the tomato sauce since we use it more, but in hindsight, I probably should have done the diced tomatoes since it's easier to find tomato sauce to buy in glass jars. Oh well, the tomato sauce was MUCH quicker to do, and since I started this while John was still at work, I kinda needed something low-maintenance thanks to 3 little boys and 1 destructive dog. I washed the tomatoes, cut the bigger ones in half, and tossed them in the vita-mix. I seriously love that thing. It makes my life just a little bit easier.
Anyway, out of that gigantic pot of sauce, I ended up getting 11 pints. My pantry is filling up quickly! I'm hoping for another week or 2 of warm (by warm, I mean above freezing) weather to possibly get enough tomatoes for some salsa...yum!
Did you season the sauce at all, or is it just like a can of tomato sauce that you would use in recipes and add to as needed? How long did you cook it before you canned it? I've never planted tomato plants because I don't like to eat them raw, but I LOVE spaghetti.... why didn't it occur to me to MAKE something with them? Doy.
ReplyDeleteI didn't season it this time. I made tomato soup a few weeks ago and I seasoned that with various Italian spices. I've also made tomato sauce before that way and liked it, but since I'm not sure how much more I'll be able to can, I decided to just make it plain. I cooked it for probably about 5 hrs or so - basically reduced it by about 1/2 until it was nice and thick.
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