Hi all,

I made Ellie's sauce from her Small Batch Preserving book last night. I'll be canning in a pressure canner. I did my vegetable prep for 2 batches, but made a single recipe for a taste test first. It seemed like a whole lot of non acidic veggies for just the 6 1/2 pounds of tomatoes called for. I show a list of my resulting amounts of chopped veggies below.

I ended up putting only a cup of each veggie in and no celery (as I don't like it) for a total of 4 cups of veggies and 2 Tbsp of garlic. Had I used all the veggies I chopped plus celery, I would have had close to 6 3/4 cups of veggies and that just seemed too much for a canning recipe! It also tastes pretty vinegary to me - too tangy with 1/2 cup of red wine vinegar. But otherwise a nice sauce.

I have canned a few other tomato sauce recipes that have used close to the amounts of veggies called for in this recipe, but for 12 pounds of tomatoes plus red wine and just 1 Tbsp of flavored vinegar, but you put lemon juice or citric acid into each of the jars before canning (I use the citric acid as I think it doesn't interfere with the taste - and I pressure can)

So, some questions before I decide to can this and make the second batch....

- How small does "chopped" really mean? My pieces are probably in the 1/4"-1/2" cubed range. After cooking the sauce down for a few hours, it's still pretty chunky. Should I do a quick lap around the pot with an immersion blender to reduce the chunkiness a bit?

- By using all the veggies from my resulting chopping in the recipe (5 3/4 cups without the celery) , would the vinegar taste have been less apparent?

- Is there a way to tone down the vinegar taste? Since I used at least 2 cups fewer vegetables, could I cut back on the vinegar or supplement with 1/8 tsp citric acid in pint jars before PCing?

- If I roasted some of the tomatoes would the additional depth and sweetness help tone down the vinegar?

Many thanks for any coaching you could provide...

Anne

This is what my prep gave me:

Garlic cloves = 2 Tbsp

Celery - I didn't use as I don't like it.

Chopped carrot = 1 1/2 cups

Chopped onion = 1 1/2 cups

Chopped zucchini = 1 3/4 cups

Chopped pepper = 1 cup

Multi-Use Tomato Sauce

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