Tomatoes!!! Pt. 2..... Spaghetti Sauce

So last night I burnt the crap out of my hand making those roasted tomatoes. I'm not going to post the pic, but cooking at midnight sucks. So here's what I did with the tomatoes today. I started off with the yucky tomatoes. The ones that have rotten spots, and bruises. I cut the spots off and cored them and stuck them in my food processor.

 

I'm ahead of myself though as always. In this pan, there is one green pepper, two small onions, and two cloves of garlic. I drizzled some olive oil on them, and cooked them on a low temp. Mostly because you don't want your olive oil to smoke, then it's rancid. Low temps here!!! Now, while that is simmering on a low temp, let's go back to the tomatoes.

 

Depending on how chunky you want your spaghetti sauce depends on how long you blend them. If you don't have one of these a blender would work, or just mushing them up. I did keep the seeds and the skins on this batch. I hate to waste, and there are healthy nutrients in there!!

 

So once I was finished with all of those tomatoes, I poured them in the pot, and cooked it uncovered for two hours. The last hour I kept a close eye on it. Waited for it to thicken. I added salt and pepper to it at this time, along with oregano, basil, two bay leaves (which I removed before storing), and a pinch of baking soda.


 

The next shot is an hour and a half later, just before it really started to thicken up. The whole family was complaining they were hungry because I was torturing them with spaghetti sauce.

 

To store them, you can water bathe them and keep them canned up, however I am uncomfortable with that. If you do choose to go that route, add 2 tbsp of lemon juice and boil the cans for at least 45 minutes. My safer route shown here, was to put them in cans with plastic lids. The head space is different in the two cans shown. The one with those most air space on top is destined for the freezer. The other will be tomorrow's dinner. I keep an eye on my cans when I'm freezing them. They go through a two step process. They go in the kitchen freezer first, and I check on them regularly. These cans can and do shatter, so I keep a close eye, making sure they don't expand so much the glass breaks. Once they've frozen solid, I take them in the basement to my big freezer, which will keep them at a lower temp.

 

Anyway, I hope this helps anyone not sure what to do with tomatoes. Be safe if your considering canning, know what you're doing. Part three will be canning!!