Kerry, I simply put 10 lbs ripe tomatoes (all different varieties) in a stock pot, add a an onion, a habanero pepper (optional), and salt to taste. Heat this up until soft and simmering. Puree with hand blender in the pot, and then simmer at least 2 hours. I add two tablespoons bottled lemon juice per quart jar, and then water bath can for 40 minutes.

It is good for drinking right out of the jar, bloody mary mix, soup, and pasta sauce. When I use for spaghetti, I add it to our cooked venison italian sausage, sautéed with a few cloves garlic, a dash of red wine, a can of diced tomatoes, and let this simmer for an hour or so to thicken up further.

I am sure there are more sophisticated methods, but this is a very simple one to make, and very tasty one for me and my family.

I wish it was easy to just make up our own pasta sauce recipes and can them. Unfortunately doing that could be quite dangerous when they contain much more than just tomatoes.

Especially if they are only BWB canned rather than pressure canned as that really limits the ingredients you can use. That gives us only a couple of approved BWB sauce recipes to choose from and maybe 3-4 others available for pressure canning.

Canning only plain tomato sauce and then doctoring it up as you wish after opening the jars is one easy and safe solution to the problem. Another option is to make one of the 3 Spice Blends (Cajun, Italian, Mexican) in the BBB and follow the directions for adding them to your plain tomato sauce before canning. Lastly, if you add pressure canning then more options are available such as canning the recipe for Stewed Tomatoes or roasted tomatoes and vegetables and then pureeing the contents after opening the jar.

We need to remind ourselves now and then that the purpose of canning is basic food preservation for later use rather than read-made convenience. When we can have both, great. But when only BWB processing that often isn't possible.

Dave

I would think that the recipe given above that includes an onion and a pepper is unsafe for water bath canning, despite the addition of lemon juice--required for straight tomatoes only, especially since the poster uses it straight from the jar in a bloody mary mix. Playing with fire here.

The Ball Blue Book has several BWB tomato sauce recipes that include more ingredients than my sauce, including up to 1/4 cup olive oil per 12 lbs of tomatoes. They are on pages 33 and 34, including "Tomato Garden Juice Blend" "Basil-Garic Tomato Sauce" and "Seasoned Tomato Sauce". I assume these are tested methods.

I think the key is adding the recommended citric acid or bottled lemon juice to each jar before water bath canning. I used to just add a 1/4 cup of white vinegar to the whole batch, but now go with the recommendation from Ball.

I have a batch of pasta sauce cooking down a bit on the stove as I am typing this, and have an observation, and a question for the other canners here.

As the sauce is simmering I was able to remove the tomato skins by simple stirring the pot and picking the skins off of the ladle itself. I had never considered removing skins before, but thought I would give a try after reading some of the posts on this forum.

Now the question …..Is the Ball Blue Book considered to be a reliable source of safe, tested recipes?

I wondered because their "Seasoned Tomato Sauce" which I trying now, calls for a higher basil, onion, garlic, olive oil to tomato ratio than I had been using.

From page 33: Per 7 quart jars (20 lbs tomatoes) it calls for 6 cups chopped onions, 12 cloves of garlic, 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil, 2 tbsp oregano, 2 tsp crushed red pepper (optional), and the requisite 2 tbsp bottled lemon juice per quart prior to BWB for 40 minutes.

After reading some of the information here, I just wanted to hear what other know about the reputation for safety that the BBB has in the canning community.

OR, freeze the recipe you like. That is what I do when I have the freezer space. Otherwise, I either just can the tomatoes and make the sauce with them another time, or use one of the Ball Blue Book recipes. But last year I had a passel of yellow tomatoes which are lower acid and I didn't want to add acid to my sauce with them to can, so I just made it up and put it in canning jars and then froze it. It was great to have on hand all year round. Freezing allows you much more creativity.

Dave, thanks for the info and correction. I ended up with 14 quarts and used well over the recommended 45 lbs of tomatoes.

I must have been looking at "Basil-Garlic Tomato Sauce" on the same page which calls for 20lbs tomatoes, 1 cup chopped onion, 8 cloves garlic, 1/4 cup minced fresh basil and 1 tbsp olive oil. Even this ratio has far more ingredients than I was typically using for my usual batch of 7-10 quarts of sauce.

At any rate I am glad to have the bought the BBB and to know that it is an authoritative source for safe recipes. I am going to dispense of my old handwritten notes, unless upon inspection the ratios among ingredients and processing times are within the guidelines in the book.

I Pinkmountain, I don't mind the freezing idea, and in fact I do freeze a lot of jarred pesto, ripe yellow cherry tomatoes, and other varieties for winter use in dishes through the early spring. I just don't like to rely too much on my freezers due to potential issues related to power outages where I live.

For what it's worth, the basil tomato sauce in the Ball Blue Book of Canning is very good. I make it all the time. I do not use all the garlic, since I am not a garlic lover.