Saturday, August 23, 2008

Spaghetti sauce

Using my 60+ pounds of tomatoes, I made some spaghetti sauce and bottled it. I did the meatless variety, figuring that I might want to add chicken or sausage or something other than ground beef to the sauce later.

I followed these instructions almost exactly - except I added herbs and seasonings to suit my taste. Go easy on your seasonings since they might get bitter over time if you add too much.

Things that are high-acidity (like the pepper jelly) are safe to can in a water bath but things that are low-acidity (like green beans) are not and either require extra acid or the use of a pressure canner. Tomatoes are right on the fence of high/low-acidity and so most recipes will suggest adding vinegar to make the sauce more acidic...yuck. If you're going to bottle your own spaghetti sauce, maybe buy or borrow a pressure canner just for the sake of good-tasting sauce.

The other thing I noticed is that the amount of head space (air between the sauce and the lid) increased a lot after bottling. I think the tomatoes or peppers cook down and leave more air at the top, since I filled the jars almost to the top before sealing them.

I had one jar that I left open so we could eat it and it has been delicious. I'm looking forward to yummy, garden-fresh spaghetti sauce all winter!

5 comments:

Hannah said...

looks great!

Valerie S said...

It's so cool that you are into the whole canning thing. Our Relief Society has been offering classes in gardening and canning and they've been really popular. I guess people are getting interested in saving money and having better tasting vegtables. You go girl. I'm so proud of you!

jeri said...

Hello Valerie! I'm so excited to start canning things - my kids go crazy over the bottled fruit and jelly. Thanks for the cookbook! Hope you are doing well.

lori parkhurst said...

Sounds delicious! I love how you make everything and love to do crafts!

Missy said...

Hey Jeri, I'm totally going to use this recipe TODAY! We have crazy amounts of tomatoes that I really need to do something with, and I was going to search on my own until I found something good... looks like you did it for me! You rock!