Yes, you can roast your veggies! If you use just a tiny amount of olive oil to coat them, they will be fine.

Garlic and red wine can both be added prior to canning with no problems as long as you process accordingly.

I would certainly suggest using a tested recipe and follow the processing times. I prefer to add meat when I open the jar just because I dont' want to process that long and I have more flexibility with the sauce (i.e. I might not want venison in my pizza sauce).

Glad you decided to come out of "Lurkdom"!! Welcome to the forum!

Deanna

Whoa! I hate to disagree, but I'd be very careful about adding garlic. It's a low-acid veggie and in sufficient amounts would lead to problems. You could use some and reduce another low-acid veggie like onion to compensate. The same is true of fresh herbs. All those amendments must be accounted for one way or another.

Roasting MAY not be a problem if you make sure your sauce does not get too thick (adding red wine would help restore the consistency). What I mean is that density is also an issue in processing as it affects heat penetration. Tested recipes are predicated on density as well as pH. That's why canning something like creamed corn takes so long. It's not just low-acid; it's very starchy.

There are some excellent tested pasta sauces posted on the Forum. You might compare your recipe to these:

Chunky Basil Pasta Sauce

Recipe By :
Serving Size : 0 Preparation Time :0:00
Categories : Canning & Preserving Dressings, Marinades, Sauces

Amount Measure Ingredient -- Preparation Method
-------- ------------ --------------------------------
8 cups (2 L) coarsely chopped peeled tomatoes -- (about 9-12 tomatoes or 4 lb/2 kg)
1 cup chopped onion -- (250 mL)
3 cloves garlic -- minced
2/3 cup red wine -- (150 mL)
1/3 cup red wine vinegar (5 % strength) -- (75 mL)
1/2 cup chopped fresh basil -- (125 mL)
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley -- (15 mL)
1 teaspoon pickling salt -- (5 mL)
1/2 teaspoon granulated sugar -- (2 mL)
1 6-oz/156 mL) can tomato paste

Combine tomatoes, onion, garlic, wine, vinegar, basil, parsley, salt, sugar and tomato paste in a very large non-reactive pan. Bring to a boil over high heat, reduce heat to low and simmer, uncovered, for 40 minutes or until mixture reaches desired consistency, stirring frequently.

Remove hot jars from canner and ladle sauce into jars to within 1/2 inch (1 cm) of rim (head space). Process 35 minutes for pin (500 mL) jars and 40 minutes for quart (1 L) jars in a BWB.

Description:
"from Ellie Topp's "Complete Book of Small-Batch Preserving"
Yield: "8 cups"

Multi-Use Tomato Sauce

Recipe By :
Serving Size : 0 Preparation Time :0:00
Categories : Canning & Preserving Dressings, Marinades, Sauces

Amount Measure Ingredient -- Preparation Method
-------- ------------ --------------------------------
10 plum tomatoes -- (about 2 1/2 lbs./1 kg)
10 large tomatoes -- peeled and chopped (about 4 lbs./2 kg)
4 large garlic cloves -- minced
2 large stalks celery -- chopped
2 medium carrots -- chopped
1 large onion -- chopped
1 large zucchini -- chopped
1 large sweet green pepper -- chopped
1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes -- (125 mL)
2/3 cup dry red wine -- (150 mL)
1/2 cup red wine vinegar (5% strength or more) -- (125 mL)
2 bay leaves
1 tablespoon pickling salt -- (15 mL)
2 teaspoons dried oregano -- (10 mL)
2 teaspoons dried basil -- (10 mL)
1 teaspoon granulated sugar -- (5 mL) (optional)
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon -- (2 mL) (optional)
1/4 teaspoon ground pepper -- (2 mL)
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley -- (50 mL)

Combine tomatoes, celery, garlic, onion, zucchini and green pepper in a very large non-reactive pan. Add 1 cup (250 mL) water. Bring to a boil over high heat, reduce heat and boil gently, covered, for 25 minutes or until mixture begins to thicken, stirring occasionally.

Soak sun-dried tomatoes in boiling water until softened. Drain and dice. Add to sauce with wine, vinegar, bay leaves, salt, oregano, basil, sugar, cinamon and pepper. Continue to boil gently until desired consistency, stirring frequently. Discard bay leaves and stir in parsley.

Remove hot jars from canner and ladle sauce into jars to within 1/2 inch (1 cm) of rim (head space). Process in a BWB 35 minutes for pint (500 mL) jars and 40 minutes for quart (1 L) jars.

Description:
"from Ellie Topp's "Complete Book of Small-Batch Preserving"
Yield: "12 cups"

If you're interested in a spaghetti sauce with meat, check the NCHFP link below.

It's not entirely true that everything can be pressure-canned. Certainly many foods can be, but as a rule-of-thumb, eggs, dairy, oils, flour or cornstarch-thickened products cannot be processed. There are a very few tested recipes that are exceptions, but when looking for a new recipe that falls into one of these categories be very careful that it does come from a reliable source.

Also, again there are density issues which limit what you can. So, for example, one change since your grandmother's time is that pureed squash is no longer canned. Only chunks are recommended because further testing determined there were inconsistencies in water content and pH with home-grown squash and serious heat-penetration problems. So that rule was changed.

By the same token, though some of us occasionally use litmus or a pH meter, it isn't an infallible method. If you're talking about a sauce with chunks of things, the problem is that the litmus even of a blended sample does not allow for the fact that a low-acid chunk in a high-acid mixture may provide a safe harbor for botulism. For that reason it can be a mistake to rely on litmus.

Carol

Here is a link that might be useful: Spaghetti Sauce with Meat

Okay, I can see how product density would effect proper canning. Typically I puree it after roasting as the kids don't like chunky sauces, but we do like them thick. If I made one of the recipes posted (Thanks, by the way, I'd given up on getting the search engine on this site to produce any recipes), and roasted the veggies, pureed them, then added the liquids and maybe tomato juice if it needed more liquid, then boiled it down to the proper yield (8 cups and 12 cups respectively) it might be okay? Or would adding the additional tomato juice mess up the pH?

In case you're interested (and in case I'm wrong and it can be canned safely LOL) here's the recipe I freeze. The lady I got it from cans it, but it just doesn't look right to me for a canning recipe.
The changes I make are to add 4-5 bell peppers pre roasting, and 2-3 cups or red wine and half a pound of sliced mushrooms post roasting, then I puree it and then cook it down on the stove. I also don't use the whole cloves, I replace the fresh herbs with dried, the whole garlic with granulated garlic, and add those while roasting, after it's broken down some. We don't generally add sugar. However, the additions that I make can easily be added at the time of use.

ROASTED TOMATO SAUCE
Can be refrigerated for up to 5 days or frozen up to 10 months
Makes about 10 cups of sauce
15 cloves of garlic
8 lbs of ripe tomatoes, any variety, halved or quartered
5-10 medium onions, quartered
1 cup fresh herbs, choppedrosemary, Italian parsley,basil, thyme, oregano
(I have been known to use dried oregano and thyme if thatÂs what I have)
¼ cup olive oil
½ teaspoon salt
Fresh ground black pepper
3-4 tablespoons sugar, optional

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Peel and chop 5 cloves of garlic. Leave the remaining cloves whole. In a large roasting pan, gently toss together the tomatoes, whole and chopped garlic, onions, herbs, oil, salt, and pepper.

2. Roast for 25 minutes. Gently stir. Roast for another 25 minutes. Stir again. Roast another 45 minutes or until tomatoes are softened and broken down into a sauce with a golden brown crust on top.

3. Remove from oven and taste for seasoning. If slightly bitter, add sugar and stir. Pour sauce into clean, sterile jars or freezer bags and refrigerate, can or freeze. If you prefer a smoother sauce, blend in a blender or use hand blender until smooth.

As far as pH testing, I know it's not widely used any more outside of recipe development, but as a 7 year old it was fun! Kitchen chemistry usually is. Heh, my gramma and I used to pretend we were witches stirring our cauldrons when we canned. I still get a little thrill when I hear that magical little POP that lets me know I did it right :)

Even if the litmus test is less common now, you have a wonderful memory of your grandmother, and that counts for a lot.

The problem with the recipe you posted is that without testing, there's just no way to know if it's "cannable" or what the appropriate processing time would be. Certainly the added oil is problematic and it appears there are high proportions of low-acid vegetables. You might compare proportions with the meatless spaghetti sauce at the NCFHP site I linked to above.

There are a lot of things I freeze rather than can (which is why I have two freezers, LOL) and one of the reasons is it offers me total latitude to add whatever I wish without worrying about safety issues.

Since you mentioned freezer recipes and roasting, you might like this one I posted a couple of seasons back. It's been pretty popular.

Roasted Tomatoes, Peppers, Corn and Capers

Makes 4 to 5 cups roasted vegetable sauce
With its silky texture and summery fragrance, this is one of the most pleasurable dishes to make. And it freezes beautifully. The roasting melds everything together, transforms the flavors, and yields juices so delicious they invite dunking with chunks of grilled French bread -- the perfect summer appetizer. It's also great served cold as a little salad, as a tasty filling for a sandwich or frittata, or cozied up next to a grilled chicken.

About 2 pounds tomatoes, peeled if desired (see note)
About 1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil (divided)
4large bell peppers (red, orange and yellow), cut into 1-inch chunks
1Walla Walla Sweet onion, halved and cut into 1-inch chunks
Fresh-cut kernels from 2 ears of corn
12nicoise olives, pitted and coarsely chopped
6sprigs Italian (flat-leaf) parsley
12large basil leaves, minced
4large cloves garlic, chopped
2tablespoons capers, rinsed
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 375 to 450 degrees (the hotter the oven, the shorter the roasting time).

If using cherry tomatoes, simply remove the stems and halve each one. Halve or quarter other varieties. Drizzle about 2 tablespoons of the oil in the bottom of a large roasting pan, jellyroll pan or any baking sheet with sides. Add the tomatoes, peppers, onion, corn, olives, parsley, basil, garlic and capers. You can crowd the vegetables together, but don't go beyond a single layer. Drizzle on the rest of the olive oil, then sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste.

Roast until the tomatoes' skins turn golden (if unpeeled). Depending on your oven temperature, this will take anywhere from 20 minutes to about 11/2 hours. When done, the tomatoes and peppers will have collapsed and darkened beautifully. Alternatively, you can roast the vegetables over indirect heat on a medium to medium-hot grill (see note), with the lid on.

Remove the roasting pan from the oven or grill and let the vegetables cool. With a metal spatula or wide, flat-sided wooden spatula, stir and scrape the cooled mixture to dissolve all of the cooked-on bits of food. To freeze, ladle the sauce into freezer containers, leaving about 1-inch head space. Let cool completely, then attach lids and freeze. Note: To peel tomatoes (don't peel cherry variety), cut a shallow X in the bottom of each tomato. Plunge them into boiling water for 30 seconds. Remove immediately and plunge into cold water. Skins should slip off easily.

Note: To check grill temperature, count the seconds you can hold your hand, palm side down, 2 to 3 inches above the rack, until it feels uncomfortable: 4 seconds for medium; 3 seconds for medium-hot.

from Jan-Roberts Dominguez

Carol

I have to agree with Carol that your posted recipe better stick with the freezer even if it means you have to pitch some stuff out of it to make room.

It has a number of potential problems that adjusting for to make it safe to can would surely change it too much for your taste. WAY too many garlic cloves (high botulism potential), too much olive oil (compounds the botulism potential of the garlic), and a high proportion of onions to tomatoes. Pureed it would be too thick to even begin to guess at a processing time even if guessing was safe. ;) As Linda Lou always says, "there are cooking recipes and then there are canning recipes..." - this is a cooking recipe.

It sounds delicious so freeze it and keep the deliciousness. ;)

Dave

Oh, yup, I agree that it's a cooking recipe. It is thick, and it is delicious, and it's not safe, in my opinion. Of course the author would disagree with me, but we just know not to eat italian at her house :)

So it's probably not a good idea to experiment with an approved method and roasting the veggies? Hmmm. I think I might try canning a proven recipe, and adding in roasted onions, mushrooms, peppers etc at the time of using, to still get a bit of that roasted taste.
Of course, I did take the summer semester off, so I may also contact the local extension office and see if they're willing to help me develop a recipe, much like Annie did with her salsa recipe. Which I have to try too lol.

Is there a thread of just recipes? I struggle so much with the search feature on this site, so I thought I'd ask.

Thanks!

Unfortunately, no. If you enter something like "chutney" or "relish" or "pickles" you'll get a ton of recipes, but you'll have to read through a lot of threads to pick them out.

The easiest is just to post a question for the old-timers. They know which recipes have proven popular on the Forum, whether it's an apple jam, a balsamic onion relish or a tomato sauce.

There is one thread that will provide a good "cache" of Forum favorites. I've linked to it below.

Carol

And it helps to use the search for just this forum (bottom of the forum front page) rather than the GW wide search bar at the top of the page. It winnows out the irrelevant posts substantially. ;)

Dave

My apologies for a misleading response. In my mind I was thinking about garlic in an APPROVED and TESTED recipe!

Carol and Dave are absolutely correct! I would concur that the posted recipe is not 'can-able' (just think about that sentence for a minute...grin).

Maybe try some of the approved recipes and see if your family likes them as well.

Deanna