Yummy Basic Tomato Sauce

This is a chicken coop, my favorite item in the whole show. That's right...surrounded by multi-million dollar homes,
but I covet the lovely, fancy chicken mansion filled with the world's smallest chickens.

Yesterday I spent 2 1/2 hours at the Northwest Naturals Street of Dreams with my oldest son, Gabe. Basically they build a bunch of super fancy multi-million dollar tricked out houses and then let the general public wander through them barefoot for weeks before some lucky person gets to buy them and move in. Although, I don't think I'd want to have to clean all that lovely fully decorated space. If anyone wants to help me build that chicken coop though...

Gabe is a sweet, odd duck child who actually really loves touring real estate. We discovered this interest when we were shopping for our home and he was cracking up the realtors with his exclamations over closet space and storage options. Two and a half hours of look but don't touch with Ben and Max would've killed (me), but Gabe was pretty much thrilled with everything. These homes had secret rooms, waterslides, guest casitas, and really big bathrooms. One shower had a actual rock in it, like the big ones around man-made fountains. I told him he can have a rock in his shower when he grows up and buys his own house. He especially loved how every room had 1...or 2 or 3 TVs. In the first home we toured he entered the Master bedroom and exclaimed...very loudly, "They can DO IT in here!!". I asked him (quickly and loudly for the sake of snickering adults all around me), 'Do what, honey?" "Watch TV!!" he shouted with glee!

Since we were just a few minutes from my favorite veggie stand in Milwaukee, Gabe and I took a jaunt to Justy's, where I bought about 70 pounds of tomatoes that were ready to can, grown in Justy's own no spray garden for $48. Because after spending the hottest part of the day hiking up a hill to tours huge houses that all seemed to have a minimum of two staircases to climb, hauling 70 pounds of tomatoes to the van so I can cook tomatoes all afternoon and evening sounds like fun, right? Whatever, the tomatoes were purchased, so it was time to put up some sauce.

I actually did most of them as diced or crushed tomatoes to use in cooking, stored in pint jars. Spaghetti sauce takes real time, and I'm kind of impatient about getting onto the canning. Just cook the crushed toms down a bit with a little salt, jar them up with a TBSP of lemon juice and can them...fastest way to get tomatoes in the can, ready for you to make something out of them later. You'll totally have more time later! Right? Bueller?

I normally do up spaghetti sauce with tons of stuff, but I kept it pretty simple this time, sicne it was already 3 in the afternoon and I was pretty tired. I think we actually like it better this way! The sauce was so tasty - I think I'll can it this way from now on, and add extra stuff later when I'm actually cooking the dinner...with all that extra time I'll have. Sweet!

Basic Tomato Sauce
15 lbs of tomatoes cored and quartered
6 onions peeled and quartered
6 (or more) cloves of garlic smashed and peeled
3 ribs celery
3 carrots (or two big handfuls of baby carrots...ahem)
Italian herbs to taste - I did two handfuls of fresh basil, a palmful of Italian Seasoning, a half palmful of oregano and a palmful of dried basil.
Extra palmfuls of Onion Powder and Garlic Powder if you are so inclined (and I am)
3 TBPS salt (I use this kind)
Maybe a pinch of Red Pepper flake if you like a bit of bite in your sauce
2 tsp. Xylitol (or you could do 2 TBSP of regular old sugar)
Bottles lemon juice or Apple Cider vinegar

I do not peel tomatoes. Like ever. So I blitz the tomatoes a few at a time in my food processor until they were pureed and added them to my biggest pot...and them eventually my two biggest pots. I need a bigger pot. If you care, go ahead and blanch and peel those tomatoes first. You'll add hoursok maybe not hours to your prep time and our sauces will taste the same.

Keep those tomatoes simmering away and reducing while you blitz the onions, garlic, celery, and carrots. I bring them to almost puree point too. Add about half to each of your pots. Keep on simmering, stirring occasionally. Add herbs and seasonings...keep on simmering. We added a bit of Xylitol, which is a sugar alcohol, but you could use sugar or honey - it helps to mellow the acid bite of the sauce.

I simmered my sauce, stirring occasionally for over 2 hours. I made a batch of salsa and started canning it during that time. The sauce changes color, becoming gradually darker and thicker the longer you cook it. I'd like to cook it even longer, but I'm too impatient. Next time I'll have to try the slow cooker!

Finally, for my texture issues boy, I give it an extra blitz with my stick blender to make sure that it's nice and smooth.

When I water bath can it I add a TBSP of bottled lemon juice to each hot jar (to help ensure the PH is up where it should be for canning). Fill with sauce leaving 1/2" at the top and process 25 minutes for pints and 35 for quarts. Try not to eat it all at once.