I did some tomato sauce processing this morning. I actually had two big giant batches. I had my dutch oven and my big pot going together at one point. The pictures below is after I cleaned it mostly up and it was just simmering down with the last batch. There was tom sauce literally everywhere before I cleaned, so I’ll keep that mess as a memory snapshot.
In hindsight, with ten 16oz jars I could have canned it up, but I think I need more research. Since I don’t eat onions or garlic because they are my mortal gastroenterology enemy, it makes finding approved and safe recipes harder. So many of them have so many onions in them.
I also don’t really want to add any acid to them, like you would do with water batch or pressure canning, because my wife has GERD already. I don’t need to throw more fuel on that fire.
Instead, I just blanched them like before, and peeled and cored out the stems. I then just cooked them down. I initially mashed them with a potato masher, and when I had cooked them down to a close to desired thickness, I used my immersion blender to blend the remaining solid toms, and some basil and green onions in from the garden. (Green onions don’t have it in for me, so I can reasonably eat those.)
Then I just filled the jars, labeled and froze them.
I am initially freezing them in the house freezer, but then I will take some out to the chest freezer later, as I won’t have to worry about them falling over then.
My last task fo the day is reheating some of the pickle brine I had left over from last time, and doing one last 16 oz jar of pickles with the last of my cucumbers from the garden.
I did not get a big enough harvest of these, or enough at one time to even bother with canning pickles. Refrigerator pickles work just as well, and are just as good.
Now, that I am done, I am going down for a good long nap. I am still exhausted from surgery. It’s very true, when you get over 50, these things take longer to come back from.
Garden Rat 