Does anyone have a recipe for homemade canned spagetti sauce. Looking for an alternative way to can tomatoes that the kids will help eat up. They LOVE spagetti! or should I say basgetti!

-- Becky Gray (bgray@lakeland.ws), June 12, 2001

Answers

Look below at spaghetti sauce 6/11

-- Lynn (johnnypfc@yahoo.com), June 12, 2001.

If you have kids than keep it simple!! I usually can (or rather bottle) about 300 -500 lbs. of sauce a year. Here is how I do it: wash the tomatos, cut them into big chunks or quarters. As I cut I add them to my big pot. I throw in a couple carrots, a couple pieces of celery, a small handful of salt, and maybe an onion or two. (this is for about 100 lbs of tomatos). I boil it until the tomatos are soft - about 20 minutes after putting in the last tomatos. Shut off the heat. I use a colander to get out the tomatos (otherwise it will be to runny) and then pass through a little hand cranked machine that I have which sifts out the seeds (a lot of them anyways) and skins.

Once this is done I funnel the sauce into beer bottles, tap and then boil for about a half hour (usually longer because I boil them outside in an old oil drum using a fire so I put wood on until they boil and then stop adding wood). Between the layers of bottles (lying down) I put a few sheets of newspaper. When it is full I fill the drum with water. The morning after I take out all the bottles and that is it.

You could also bottle any left over liquid and bottle that for soups or rice. This sauce is very nice because it hasn't a particular taste so it can be jazzed up a little differently each time.

-- kelly (kellytree@hotmail.com), June 13, 2001.