Seems like months that I’ve been making tomato sauce on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. This morning I picked tomatoes, sorted out a bag of slicers to give to each of my two closest neighbors, along with a bag of cherry tomatoes for each. Picked out the tomatoes that need to get a little riper and they will go into Monday’s sauce.
Tomatoes
The remaining tomatoes were washed. It was enough to fill the big soup pot.
Tomatoes
Once they were peeled, cored and the seeds removed, there was less than half of a soup pot of tomatoes.
Tomatoes
Cooked down, with a few spices added, all those tomatoes produced 5 quarts of tomato sauce.
Tomatoes
This process began about 6:45 a.m. with me in the garden. At 1:40 p.m. I got the jars in the canner.
The rest of my afternoon will be spent knitting.
Kynomi says
Judy, have you tried a Foley food mill for your tomatoes? You can skip the peeling, seeding, and coring. Just run them through the food mill after cooking them down, and it removes all the seeds, peels, etc. Might save you some time.
JudyL says
I do have it and I’ve done it both ways but prefer to peel, seed and core them by hand. That way I can cut away any bad spots and then I can get a good idea of how to get exactly enough sauce to fill the jars when I know everything going in the jars is usable.
joanna says
You may have answered my question already above…just wondering about using the vitamin, seeds, skin, and all. I’ve heard that some of the Italian grandmothers like to use the whole tomato.
I prefer a little chuckiness to our sauce, but I’ve wondered about a half & half mix.
Just curious and perhaps looking for an excuse to buy a VM!
Thanks, Joanna
Judy D in WA says
Again, I am so jealous of your juicy red tomatoes. I can smell them through the screen. Mine will be ripe one of these days. 🙂
Angie says
Judy, next batch of tomato sauce, try your new Vitamix. I make fresh tomato sauce in the mine. Puree. Cook it down, and freeze it. Just cut the tomatoes in half, process with the Vitamix. It comes out very smooth. If you want chunky tomato sauce add chopped tomatoes during the last phase of cooking.
JudyL says
I’m not using all paste tomatoes and leaving the seeds and extra juice in would take forever to cook down. I start with about 30 quarts of tomatoes and that would take forever with the Vitamix. I use the immersion blender right in the big pot and it makes a very smooth sauce.
Dru says
I, also, use my immersion blender in my pot to make sauce. I core and seed the tomatoes, but don’t peel them. The blender grinds those skins right up…yay!
Cindy from CA says
Do you add onions or garlic? Or just make straight tomato sauce? My tomatoes will be hitting their peak in the next couple of weeks!
Diana says
Ahh canning takes time and patience but I sure love the end product when we open it up in the middle of winter and eat the goodies !
Linda Steller says
Wow – a lot of work, but I’ll bet you that sauce tastes like heaven – especially compared to the stuff that comes in a jar at the store!