As opposed to putting up with something, which basically describes my life.
I did once put up a few small jars of blackberry jam with the kids while vacationing on Block Island. We tried to sell the jam at the playground – I think someone bought one jar – then used the rest of the jars pretty much immediately. And that was the end of my putting up.
Until this week, when I was faced with forty pounds of South Jersey Roma tomatoes (Thanks Patty!) a few days after meeting blogger Marissa McClellan, who was selling her book Food in Jars
at the Union Square Greenmarket and two days after my mother-in-law Irene sent me a recipe for what she is calling the best tomato sauce she’s ever made.
The stars had aligned. It was time for a real put up.
A Warning
First of all, I must warn you. This tomato sauce recipe has not been formally “tested” as safe for canning. However, it is not dissimilar in amounts of olive oil, garlic and peppers to other recipes I found on the web that are tested for canning. Just to be safe, I’m freezing all but one jar of my canned sauce, and will update this post in 6 months or so when I open up the one unfrozen jar to see how it fared.
Of course, you don’t need to put up this sauce. You can just make it, use it and eat it right away.
A Second Warning
Forty pounds of tomatoes is a lot of tomatoes. Unless you have a 3 day empty weekend, or are willing to give up three to four straight week nights (for me happily coinciding with Ken Burns’ The Roosevelts on PBS) and a bit of sleep, I do not recommend starting with such a large amount of tomatoes. I spent an entire evening making 5 quarts of sauce, not to mention the clean up time, which left me getting to bed well after midnight and still with 20 pounds of tomatoes.
The next night I got smarter, I thought, and made oven dried tomatoes. (That post is coming up) The first batch was a disaster, and while the second batch turned out okay, I had to set the alarm to check the tomatoes every few hours overnight. That left me with about 10 pounds of tomatoes. Those I will blanch, skin and can tonight. Hopefully, it will go quickly.
How I canned this sauce
I canned my sauce using a water processing method. (This is as opposed to using a pressure canner.)
- Make the sauce as directed, multiplying by 6 and using about 18 pounds of tomatoes.
- Towards the end of the vegetable roast, fill a large stockpot with water, place a 12 inch metal cake cooling rack on the bottom, then fill and submerge 5 one quart mason jars in the water. (Your jars should not sit directly on the bottom of the pot – you can put a dish towel there if you don’t have a rack or a trivet to use).
- Boil with the lid on for 10 minutes (My stock pot lid has a steam scape valve – very handy), then turn it down on a very low heat to keep the jars warm so that they will not break when I you add the hot sauce.
- Boil the lids in small saucepan and turn them down to keep as well.
- After the sauce is made, and has simmered for 10 mins or so as directed, remove the mason jars from the water bath with a pair of tongs (I need to get a jar lifter for future efforts, this was a bit precarious). Fill the jar, wiping away any excess sauce near the top and leaving 1/2 -1 inch airspace, then put on the lids and finger-tighten them.
- Return the now-filled jars to the stock pot, sitting them neatly on the submerged cake racker and removing the excess water from the pot with a small sauce pan, so that the final water level is 1-2 inches above the top of the jars. (Since the jars are now filled, you don’t need as much water in the pot.) I was able to fit 5 quart jars in my large stock pot.
- Bring the water to a rolling boil, cover the pot and let it boil for 45 minutes. (This is an extra ten minutes over the recommended processing time for quart jars at sea level, but I wanted to be safe. Processing times do vary by elevation – you can check here for the right time for your location).
- After processing, I remove the jars to a towel-covered counter top and let them sit and cool overnight. As mine cooled, I could hear the lids popping (a good sign that the vacuum seal has worked). Although some folks say to remove the outer rings and just let the cans sit with the vacuumed lids atop, I’m leaving the rings on.
Bottom Line
Putting up is fun, but laborious. It’s not an undertaking to be taken lightly, and you must be sure to do it safely. I learned a lot this first go round. Stay tuned for more next season.
RITA & IRENE’S FRESH SUMMER TOMATO SAUCE
This recipe comes from my mother-in-law Irene, the world’s greatest home cook, via this delightful email she sent to me a few weeks ago-
Hi Peggy, Here it is 10am Sunday morning and I just finished making the best tomato sauce I ever made. I was sitting in the dentist’s chair on Thursday going through 2-1/2 hours of dental fun. The dental assistant, Rita and I were having some delightful conversations about food. She’s a vegetarian and we had a lot to talk about when I didn’t have a lot of stuff going on in my mouth. At one point she told me of a fresh tomato sauce she makes that’s very good. All she gave me were the basic ingredients, without amounts, the oven temperature and the time —tomatoes, red pepper, garlic, olive oil, 350 oven for an hour and a half. I had to figure out how to do it and season it. Here’s what I came up with.
This recipe is for one batch of sauce. I multiplied the recipe by 6, using about 20 pounds of tomatoes, and got 5 quarts of sauce.
- 5 large summer tomatoes, quartered (or 3-4 pounds roma tomatoes, halved)
- 1 large red pepper, seeded and cut in 1/6ths
- 1 bulb of garlic, unpeeled (that’s a bulb, not a clove)
- 2 tsps. sea salt
- lots of freshly ground black pepper
- 1 tsp. sugar
- 1/4 cup olive oil
Do not peel the tomatoes, the pepper or the garlic, the skins come off easily when they’re finished roasting. Place all ingredients in a large roasting pan. Place in 350 oven for 1-1/2 hours.
Remove from oven and let cool for about a half hour until the tomatoes and pepper and garlic are cool enough to handle and peel. Peel the tomatoes and peppers into a large sauce pot, discarding the skins. Squeeze the roast garlic into the pot and discard the skins. Using an immersion blender, blend tomatoes, peppers and garlic to a smooth sauce. Add back the oil and juices from the pan as needed to thin the sauce to the right consistency (I used about 3/4 of it). Heat to boiling and then simmer 10 mins. Season as necessary.
Use immediately, or pour into prepared canning jars and process.
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Some great links on canning
- Freshpreserving.com – Ball, maker of Mason jars, has a fabulous site that includes how-to’s and tested recipes.
- Utah State University Cooperative Extension guide to home canning, including a free self-guided Powerpoint class
- Food in Jars – A fabulous blog about canning.
- Simple Bites – Canning 101
- National Center for Home Food Preservation at the University of Georgia
A classic recipe and easy to prepare, good recommendation! During summer, everybody should prepare this simple, but delicious sauce.