Making Basic Tomato Sauce

I received 3 bags of green and red tomatoes yesterday along with two big bags of squash. One of my sons-in-law or is that son-in-laws(?) gave it to me. Earlier in the summer I had told him that if he had leftover anything he didn't want, I would take it off his hands and can it. I hadn't really anticipated that much, but I definitely appreciated it. Then came the dilemma of what to do with it. Should I make ketchup, should I make salsa, should I make stewed tomatoes? I have found, when I come up against a dilemma, I should just go where "the music takes me." In other words, don't fret and worry about what to make...just go where the path leads me.

Today it led me to start by whirring the quartered and cored tomatoes into sauce. That took care of about half the tomatoes and I started looking at how many hours it was going to take me to finish this. I started at 11:30 a.m. If I continued down the food processor path, it was going to take longer than I wanted to finish it. My energy only lasts so long and I knew I would need as much energy as I could muster. I stood there staring at the remaining tomatoes, both green and red and decided to find out what would happen if I just quartered them, cut off the "icky" parts and threw them into the saucepot along with whatever sauce I had just created in the food processor. I decided that the tomatoes had been given to me, I wasn't out any money, so basically I could find a way to make this easier on myself (and maybe be able to tell you, too). Now it could be that I'm just slow on the uptake and everyone else already knows this, but I'll tell you anyway.

I threw the quartered tomatoes and the sauce into one big pot. The tomato mixture filled the pot to the top. I turned the heat to high and constantly stirred the tomatoes to keep them from burning. I had not removed the peels before putting them into the pot. As the tomatoes cooked and bubbled--the peels would come off and would rise to the top where I would just use my handy dandy picker-upper to remove the boiling hot peels from the top of the pot. I continued stirring with my left hand and removing peels with my right. I kept a bowl next to the pot and just put the peels in there. So far, so good. Stir, stir, stir, remove, remove, remove. By the time 4:00 p.m. rolled around the tomatoes were approximately 1/3 cooked down. I added dry minced onion, dry mixed bell peppers, garlic powder, salt, some sugar, honey, and about a cup of vinegar. I continued stirring and removing any peelings that showed themselves. I turned the burner to low and switched it to simmer then stirred and removed the last of the peelings.

The tomatoes were doing just fine. The green tomatoes cooked down as well as the red ones. I then got out my immersion blender and started slowly pulverizing. The directions on the immersion blender state that it should not be used for longer than two minutes at a time. I would pulse the tomato mixture for approximately two minutes and let the blender rest for five minutes, all the while continuing to stir. It was all starting to come together and looking good.

I got my jars and lids ready by putting them into hot water and sterilizing them. When the tomato mixture had reduced by half I checked for any remaining peels and couldn't find any. I gave it one last whirl with the blender and got the water bath canner ready. I put the tomato sauce into the jars, sealed them and processed them. I now have 21 pints of a basic tomato sauce. I can use this to make ketchup, spaghetti sauce, use it in chili or making spanish rice. The only variation will be whatever spices and seasonings go into the basic sauce. I was done in time to eat supper. Do you have any tomatoes you want to get rid of?