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| Because I was not preserving the final product, I used yellow tomatoes in with my reds to make juice. If you are hot water bath canning, you will want to use only the red tomatoes which contain more acid. Juice and sauces made from yellow tomatoes can be frozen or canned in recipes that have a lot of vinegar which raises the acidity level. Just be sure to find recipes specifically for preserving yellow tomatoes if you are going to use the hot water bath canner. Aren't these colors beautiful together? Here I used a variety of heirlooms. Pasta sauce tomatoes such as Romas make the best sauces because they have lest juice and more meat, but with a little extra simmering time, you can make any tomato work for sauce. |
Having an abundance of tomatoes in the summer is a blessing but also a responsibility. We can only eat so many of them fresh. That means I need to come up with creative ways to preserve the bounty. Besides simply canning whole tomatoes, tomato juice and making ketchup, I also make our own spaghetti and pizza sauce. Sometimes, I go ahead and make the sauce and then can it but often I just use the canned juice to make sauce as I need it. I love to smell the sauce slowly cooking on the stove during the winter, the seasonings filling the house with their delightful aroma. One kitchen tool I invested in a couple of years ago that has been a real time saver for me was a steam juicer. While they are expensive, they certainly pay for themselves in the time they have saved me and with how they make dealing with large amounts of produce a much easier process. When I am pushed for time, using my steam juicer to extract the juice from fruit allows me to can or freeze it with little effort.
I had a ten pound box of tomatoes over the weekend that I needed to use before they went bad. I simply washed them, quartered them and put them on the stove in the juicer. Within thirty minutes I had a good bit of delicious tomato juice. I used part of it in my vegetable soup (some of which we ate and some of which I froze for later meals) and the rest I used to cook down and make pizza sauce. There are all kinds of recipes to season pizza sauce but I usually just toss in my spices, keeping it simple. I always use garlic and oregano, salt, pepper and a bit of sugar. (If I am making spaghetti sauce, I add bell pepper and onions when I make my juice, giving my final sauce a little bit different flavor than my pizza sauce, although I have used both sauces interchangeably.)
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| One thing I do is pour the weaker, thinner water off that comes off the tomatoes first. Then I am left with a thicker juice to begin my thickening process. Once the tomatoes have been steamed, I use a wooden spoon to mash them down to get as much of the pulp as possible. Simply toss the skins and cores that remain in the strainer basket. (Pigs and poultry love them!) |
How do you make your pizza sauce? Do you have a recipe you would like to share?
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| Nothing can compare to homemade sauce! |