Pasta Sauce 2009

There we go, the sauce is finally in the canner! This is definitely not a sauce for someone who does not like a lot of work since it takes a good 2 or 3 days to make. First of all, it contains a lot of roasted red pepper, which itself takes a good day of work. Though I roasted about twice what I needed for this recipe and canned the rest. Hmmm, note to self : I still have not written the article on roasting peppers, so please stay tuned for that. Last year was the first year I used roasted red peppers in my Pasta / Pizza sauce, and I liked it so much that I'm doing largely the same thing with a few tweaks.

The biggest difference between this year and last year is that this time around I wanted to use up some zucchini from our CSA, so I decided to toss a good sized one in there. I also have a 2 or 3 pounds of heirlooms tomatoes in there this year as well - just to use up ones from the CSA. I did not measure either, but I did measure another zucchini that was about the same size, and it was 650g. Heirloom tomatoes about 2 or 3 lbs - together after cooking it down for about an hour they made up exactly 2 litres of puree that went into the main sauce.

Another thing I am doing differently this year is that I have pureed the sauce. There is always a big argument between me and my wife, since I like my sauce pureed and she likes it chunky. And unfortunately, she usually wins. But this year she decided she did not want to help with the sauce so that made the decision pretty easy - no help, no input! Pureed it is!

And finally, a bit of honey this year to round it out better.

Of course, to make sauce from your own tomatoes you have to start out with - you guessed it - tomatoes! I recently did an article on processing tomatoes, so you can follow that video if you've never done it. It is the same basic process here, except that when making sauce you boil it down an awful lot further to thicken it up.

Here is my recipe this year. In hindsight I'd use 1/2 to 1 full teaspoon less pepper, because the zucchini adds a pepperiness to it. Oh, and note that not peeling the zucchini leaves a very distinct green tint to your sauce :-)

• 2-3 lbs heirloom tomatoes, cored and peeled
• 40 lbs roma tomatoes ( 1 bushel ), cored and peeled
• 1 x 650g zucchini, not peeled
• 2 bunches chopped cilantro ( 4 cups )
• 3 plants chopped basil ( 3 cups )
• 2 huge spanish onion, chopped ( 8 cups )
• 5 cups roasted red pepper goop
• 4 whole bulbs fresh local organic garlic
• 7 teaspoons salt (non-iodized)
• 3.5 teaspoons pepper
• 125 ml garlic scape goop
• 2/3 cup local organic honey

The "garlic scape goop" was made from the garlic scapes that I got from my CSA in the spring. Scapes are the long skinny shoots that grow out of the tops of garlic. Farmers trim them off so that the energy of growing goes into the bulb, but the scape themselves are really yummy - kind of like green onions but very garlicy in flavour. I process a whole whack of scapes in the spring in a food processor with olive oil, to get about 4 cups of "scape goop"

For this sized batch you'll need 2 pretty large pots - even though the final volume is about 12 litres, that is after quite a bit of boiling. Pre-boil it will not all fit in my 15 litre pot so I split it between the 15 and another 11L pot. Besides, that gives greater surface area which helps it boil down faster.

Basically, I added the cored, peeled tomatoes to a small 2 litre pot that is not even on the heat. When that gets full, I take my hand blender and puree it well, then dump all but the last inch into my big pot. I leave a bit of puree in there to help lube the hand blender for the next batch I put through. I found it easier to do it this way than to puree in the big pot, because it eventually gets too deep for the hand blender, and running it in the hot pot can make the hand blender too hot.

It takes a good 4 or 5 hours to core and peel a bushel of tomatoes by yourself, but of course you have them on the boil that whole time. When I got down far enough I added the smaller pot to the bigger one, then boiled to just below the 12L mark on my pot (there are notches), then called it a day. Total boil time was 10 to 12 hours from the time I started processing the tomatoes. With the lid kept on the pot it is fine to leave it sit there for 12 to 20 hours (with no heat on) until you get back from work the next day to can it up :-) I just reheated it to about 150F, put it into the jars, and started canning it.

Yield :

• 26 x 500ml jars

I know that 26 x 500ml is more than the noted 12L, but you have to account for head space :-)