I didn't do tomato sauce yesterday (picked green tomatoes instead and it got too late) so I have to do it today. I wanted to add veggies to tomatoes, 2 recipes to chose from - NCHFP's Spaghetti Sauce without Meat and their Tomatoes and Zucchini (I have yellow straightneck instead, I know that's OK to sub).

So, since I'm trying to use up my peppers and squash, and I have a lot of storebought onions, I was wondering if I could substitute a mix of the squash, peppers, and onions for the zuke/okra in the recipe with the 35 minute PC time? That recipe calls for 12 lbs of tomatoes, 4 lbs of squash or okra, and "4-5 pearl onions or 2 slices of onion per jar" - and doesn't specify pints or quarts, since processing times are given for both sizes.

Ball Complete says 50 pearl onions weigh about 1 lb so 5 would be 1.6 oz. I don't know about adding sliced (I'd prefer diced) raw onion to the jars, would prefer to cook it with the tomatoes and squash (and peppers) if possible, and I'd feel better including the total weight of the onions, say 14 - 16 oz (1.6 oz per pint for 9 pints is app. 14.5 oz, if that "jar" referred to quarts then recipe makes 7 quarts and it would be more like 11oz) in the 4 lbs of low acid veggies and just use less squash. But if the onions have to be added raw to each jar I can do that - does anybody know what size jar NCHFP was referring to?

I'd also like to add peppers (again, subtracting the prepped weight from the 4 lb figure) - diced small, cooked with the tomatoes before adding the squash? Probably about 1 lb total - is this OK, since pH of zucchini/yellow squash is app. 6, so is pH of green bell peppers? Or does density (with peppers making up 1/4 of the low-acid veggies) become an issue?

I think that using this recipe with the longer processing time is better than trying to sub squash for the 1 lb of mushrooms in the Spaghetti Sauce recipe (and I have more squash and peppers to use than that recipe calls for, not enough ripe tomatoes to make multiple batches).

Thanks