Tomatoes galore! I now had about 3 dozen tomatoes sitting on the kitchen table and a decision needed to be made…what should I make with them? While we don’t frequently have homemade pizza, I thought it was time for me to figure out how to make a good vegan (or at least cheese-free) pizza. I have not yet found a good vegan cheese that melts like mozzarella and actually tastes good. I’ll have to do without cheese, so that means the sauce had better taste good!
I decided to make a hearty sauce with the tomatoes plus green peppers, onion, garlic, basil, oregano, salt, pepper, sugar and canned tomato paste.
All my tomato recipes start with dipping the tomatoes into boiling water for about a minute and then shocking them in ice water. This loosens the skins so they are easy to peel. (If you want to see that process in detail, see the post at https://marykisner.com/garden-update-august-9-2021).
When the tomatoes were soft and bubbling, a lot of water had floated to the top. Without stirring the mixture, I was able to scoop off about 3 cups of watery juice so the whole mixture would be thicker.
When completely soft but still lumpy I put the mixture through the food processor to make it smooth. Then I added the tomato paste. This made a nice thick sauce. I added the dried basil, oregano, garlic, salt and pepper and about 1/3 cup of sugar.
We took this whole pot of sauce and put it in the refrigerator overnight. This morning I ran the dishwasher with 19 half-pint jars. (Turns out the canner holds 19 pints, but 24 half-pint jars! Next year…). I froze a few containers that were left over.
Bert started loading the canner with filled jars. (Sorry, no pictures of that exciting process!) However, after a few jars were lowered into the hot water, one broke spilling out sauce all over the other jars. Bert had to start over…taking out the unbroken jars, dumping the hot water, carefully removing the broken jar, rinsing the canner, and adding water and vinegar back (we have hard water and vinegar keeps the sediment off the jars). Luckily, I had an extra jar ready to go so 19 jars went back into the canner.
The jar broke right along the bottom…looked like a clean break. I’ve never had a jar break…ever!
Now the pressure canning process: Bert has rigged up a burner with propane that we use in the garage. The canner is too big to fit on our glass stove top.
Tomato sauce with additional stuff like peppers, onions and garlic is processed at 10 lbs. of pressure for 30 minutes. It always takes longer than that because the canner has to be vented first, then brought up to pressure, held for 30 minutes and then cooled down until pressure is back down.
So…we sit in comfortable chairs in the garage and visit or read while we wait. Occasionally, neighbors will drop by to see what we’re doing since the garage doors are open and we look open for a visit!
Finally, the jars are ready to come out of the canner. They will sit on my kitchen table for a few hours to cool down. I’ll write on the lids what they contain and the year. After that, they go to the basement shelves…ready for Pizza! I’ll let you know when I give that a try…maybe I’ll find some vegan cheese to try too. Enjoy!
Please leave a comment or email me directly at marykisner@comcast.net.
That’s a lot of pizza sauce! We used to can tomato soup, but we never managed to eat enough before it got too old.
Oh my gosh what an exciting post! I wish you were next door so I could come and learn from you in person! Thanks for giving me the next best thing!
Love you and great job!
Cindy Graves 🙂
Hopefully we’ll be able to use it up by next August…that’s less than twice a month. If I can find some vegan cheese that tastes good it could happen!
Thanks Cindy! I’m never sure if folks find this stuff interesting but writing about it keeps me sane. Wish you were nearby too. Hope all is well!
I have to get one of those pressure canners and propane burner…I can only manage 3 quarts at a time using my equipment in the kitchen. This works fine when tomatoes ripen a few at a time but this year they seems to be hitting all at the same time.
Todd…check out the All American Pressure Cooker/Canner. It comes in several sizes and it does not require a rubber seal. That is the first thing to fall apart. We don’t use ours often but it sure does the job!