Simple as 1-2-3: Canning Homemade Sauce

So my mom and I make sauce every fall for the winter! It is one of my favorite things to do!! During the winter opening up a fresh can of sauce is wonderful! So here is how we make our sauce…

We got two cases of tomatoes…next year we will get 4! Two cases made 20 jars of sauce!

1st: Cut any bruises off the tomatoes and cut them in half and place in a pot.

2nd: Cook them down!

3rd: While cooking it down get your jars ready place them in the dishwasher on the hottest setting and clean them! JUST do the jars! Your sanitizing them which is super important!

4th: Cut your basil from the garden and wash it!

5th: As the tomatoes cook down stir, stir, stir!! You want to rotate the tomatoes from the bottom to the top!

6th: Get ready to grind down the tomatoes you want to get the skin and seeds separated from the juice which will make your sauce sweet! If you keep the skin and seeds it will make your sauce bitter!

7th: Once your tomatoes look like this...

Start to scoop it into the foley chopper..

My baby girl was watching away! Little Italian in training!

See the seeds and skin?? When you get every last piece of juice out you can discard all this.

8th: Place the juice on the stove to cook down! You can add a can of paste to thicken it a little!

Stir, stir, stir..

9th: Get a towel ready and place your hot jars from the dishwasher out on it..

10th: Place sauce in jar and put a basil leaf and a tsp of salt in each jar. Make sure to clean the rims of the jars! You don't want the jar to not seal properly!

11th: Put tops and rims in a pot and place on the stove. Boil the pot for about 15 minutes. You need to sterilize the tops!

12th: Use tongs to get the lids and rims out of the pot and place them on the jars. Close the tops…you don't need to do this too tight since they will seal on their own. Once that happens you can close all tops.

13th: Place jars in a clean pot with water. The water needs to go above the jars. Make sure jars to touch or they will break! They need to boil for 20 minutes before removing them for the pot!

14th: After you take them out of the water place them under a towel. Going from extreme heat to cooler air you could crack the jars to this will help them cool naturally.