Pizza Sauce

September 18, 2016 / featherheadlady / Leave a comment

Last year when I was canning tomatoes I decided to make salsa. As usual, I did more than necessary and have plenty of salsa left for this year. This season I made some of my tomatoes into pizza sauce. There is no pizza delivery anywhere remotely close to where we live so when we are craving pizza I need to make it myself. The sauce is relatively easy to make. Cooking down the tomatoes is the most time consuming part so you need to be patient or you will end up with watery sauce. The kitchen smells so good when this sauce is cooking.

Ingredients:

Tomatoes , approximately 4 quarts peeled and diced

2 T olive oil

1 Large Onion diced

6 or more cloves of garlic (I used more)

2 T oregano

2 T basil

2 T celery seed

4 T chopped fresh parsley

2 T salt

2 T granulated sugar

cracked pepper to taste

1/4 tsp citric acid per pint of sauce

Core, peel and dice the tomatoes. Bring a large kettle of water to a boil and drop a few tomatoes in for a minute or so until you see the skins start to break. Remove the tomatoes to an ice water bath and slide the skins off. Dice and put the tomatoes into a large, non aluminum, kettle.

Begin cooking the tomatoes over medium heat. In the meantime, heat the olive oil in a heavy skillet and add the onion. Cook, stirring frequently, until the onion is tender and translucent but not brown. Add the onion and garlic to the tomatoes.

Bring the tomatoes to a simmer stirring frequently. Add the sugar, herbs and spices, and salt and pepper. Once the tomatoes begin to break down use an immersion blender to get a nice, smooth sauce. Cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, until the tomatoes have reduced by approximately 50% and you have a nice sauce that clings to the spoon.

Ladle the sauce into sterilized jars (I used pints). Add 1/4 tsp of citric acid just before sealing the jars. Process the sauce in a hot water bath for 45 minutes. Once you remove the jars from the water bath allow them to cool completely before storing.

That is not ALL pizza sauce…better than half the jars are diced tomatoes. Now, all you need to do is whip up a crust and get a pizza in the oven. I made one with the sauce that was left over after filling my jars and some of our favorite toppings.

NOTE. If you don’t have an immersion blender you can use a regular blender or food processor and process in small batches. Also feel free to add other spices or increase/decrease some of the ones that I used. If you like your sauce kicked up a little add some red pepper flakes.

I put my garlic cloves in the tomatoes without dicing. Once the sauce simmered for awhile the immersion blender took care of them.

Salsa

September 21, 2015September 21, 2015 / featherheadlady / 1 Comment

I’ve been doing a lot of canning this last month. I did a bushel of beets (now pickled) and a bushel of cucumbers (now bread and butter and dill pickles).

I put up 2 1/2 bushels of tomatoes. Some just plain diced tomatoes, some stewed tomatoes, and, this year, salsa. Nothing is better than a winter of making chili or tomatoe sauce or soup with tomatoes that you canned yourself. And we enjoy a lot of tomato dishes. Salsa was a new experiment this year and, if I say so myself, it turned out quite well.

Ingredients:

15 cups diced tomatoes

1 each red, yellow and orange pepper small diced

1/2 each of a red, white, and sweet yellow onion small diced

3 jalapeno peppers seeded and small diced (use the seeds if you like a spicier salsa)

2 serrano peppers seeded and small diced

2 anaheim peppers seeded and small diced

1 1/4 cup cider vinegar

1 T salt

Core the tomatoes, put them in boiling water for 2-3 minutes to split and loosen the skin and transfer them to an ice water bath.

Peel and dice the tomatoes.

Wash, core and dice the peppers and peel and dice the onions.

Combine the tomatoes and onion and pepper mix in a heavy, non-aluminum kettle. Add the salt and vinegar and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 15 minutes stirring occastionlly.

Put the salsa in sterilized pint jars leaving 1/2 inch of headspace. Wipe the rim of the jar with a clean cloth. Put the a lid on each jar and process in a hot water bath canner for 25 minutes.

Remove jars from the water bath, place on a heavy towel and allow to cool. Wait 24 hours and test each jar to be sure it has sealed by pressing down on the lid.

The “heat” level may increase over time. I like medium salsa. If you like yours hotter don’t seed the peppers and/or add additional hot peppers. We ate some of the salsa while it was still warm on tortilla chips and later on tacos. It was great! I haven’t tried this yet but I’m thinking a jar of this salsa would be a perfect addition to a pot of chili.

Canned Stewed Tomatoes

August 21, 2014September 13, 2014 / featherheadlady / 1 Comment

Today was a canning day. Stewed tomatoes for lots of soup and chili days this winter. I bought a bushel of beautiful tomatoes from the farm market yesterday.

Because I was making stewed tomatoes the first thing I did was diced one large sweet onion, two sweet peppers and three or four stalks of celery. I did red and yellow peppers but green will work too.

Next step was to peel and core the tomatoes. I core and then put them in a pot of boiling water for a minute or so until the skins crack and slide off easily.

I core and peel about a quarter bushel at a time. Then I did a bite size dice and put them in a large stainless steel kettle over medium heat.

Once the tomatoes begin to simmer I stir in my diced vegetables and simmer them about 30 minutes.

We like garlic so I stir minced garlic into the tomatoes just before I begin filling my jars.

I use a canning funnel to ladle the hot tomatoes into jars that have been sterilized in boiling water. Once the jars are filled I add 1/2 tsp of sea salt and 1/8 tsp of citric acid.

The last step is putting the jars into a hot water bath making sure I have a couple inches of water over the jar lids. Once the water comes back up to a boil set the timer…35 minutes for pints, 45 minutes for quarts.

Now I have awesome tomatoes to enjoy all winter long.

Canning is a bit time consuming but not difficult at all. A half bushel of tomatoes yielded about 28 pints of stewed tomatoes. I will omit all the veggies for the second half bushel and hot pack a simple diced tomato.

Home-canned tomatoes make the best soups and chili and tomato sauce!