Spaghetti Sauce

This past weekend, I tried to make my own spaghetti sauce.  I had a ½ bushel of Roma tomatoes from the garden that I had put into the blender under “salsa” mode to keep it a little bit chunky.  I then emptied the contents into a large stock pot and brought to a nice simmer for about 8 hours.  I added some rosemary and basil from the garden, as well as 3 chopped onions, about 8 tbsp worth of minced garlic, Italian seasoning, hot pepper flakes, oregano and a little bit of sugar.

After 8 hours of simmering, it was about half the amount I originally started with.  I originally put some basil, rosemary, onions and garlic in the sauce, but I did not like how bitter the sauce was.  I called my mom to see what I should put in.  That’s when she mentioned the other ingredients.

I was planning on canning, but right now, I’m not so sure.  I am afraid to can.  I don’t know why, I just am!  I’ve got the mason jars (free from Freecycle), but I don’t have the wide-mouth caps and lids.  I’d have to go buy those.

I have a friend’s pressure canner, but it says right on the box that it is not to be used with glass stovetops (which is what we have.) Apparently, they can break the glass stovetop.

I had this idea that I’d plant all these tomato plants (which I did – we have 28 tomato plants) and we’d have enough sauce to last us through the winter.  Yeah…THAT didn’t happen.  I bet we would have about 6-8 jars of sauce from the batch I made.  Yes, we still have a lot of green tomatoes on the vines that may made up another ½ bushel in the next few weeks, but was it really worth it?

I told my FaceBook friends that I will not be planting that many tomato plants again next year.  But, after thinking about it, if Todd really likes the sauce, I will probably have another go at it next year.  Maybe not with 28 tomato plants (20 of which were Roma), but maybe 5 or 6 beefsteak tomato plants or another larger variety.

What has been your experience with canning?

Have you ever canned before?