Sorry, no. Not with the 2 cups oil. Even pressure canning won't help.

Carol

Oh well, I'd better find another recipe for canned pizza sauce then.

Thanks a lot, Carol!

Hilde

Omit the oil and add that oil when you open a jar. Also, add the necessary extra acid as in citric or lemon juice.

I can do that? Cool! How much citric/lemon juice is needed, do you think?

Thanks a lot ksrogers!

Hilde

Here is a safe recipe from The Complete Book of Small-Batch Preserving. I make several batches of this and use if for pizzas all year.

Seasoned Tomato Sauce

12 cups chopped ripe tomatoes (about 6 lb.)
1 cup chopped onion
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp chopped fresh oregano OR 1 tsp dried
2 tsp granulated sugar
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
2 bay leaves
2 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp salt

1. Combine tomatoes, onion, garlic, oregano, sugar, pepper and bay leaves in a large stainless steel or enamel saucepan. Bring to a boil over high heat, reduce heat and boil gently, uncovered, until very thick, about 1 1/4 hours; stir frequently. Press through a food mill or coarse sieve to remove seeds and skins. Add lemon juice and salt.

2. Remove hot jars from canner and ladle sauce into jars to within 1/2 inch of rim. Process 35 minutes for half-pint or pint jars.

Makes about 4 cups.

After some discussion on this forum, I would make the following change to this recipe. The amount of lemon juice and salt is correct for the expected 4 cups. But because you may or may not boil it down to the same volume, I would suggest adding the lemon juice and salt to each jar rather than to the mixture. In other words, add 1/2 tbsp lemon juice and 1/8 tsp salt to each half-pint.

Someone please jump in if I am wrong on the lemon juice and salt.

Ellie Topp and Howard's book is very reliable, so I'm comfortable with just following their recommendation. However, there's no harm whatsoever in adding lemon juice/salt to the jars instead, so if it increases your comfort level, do it.

I'm glad you posted that recipe. I was just getting ready to do the same thing myself!

Carol

Thanks a lot for the recipe and advise, prairie love!

I will try this and it is a good idea to add the salt and lemon juice to the jars.

Thanks again, Carol!

Hilde

Carol, you are the one who made me buy the Small Batch book - you talked about its recipes so lovingly. I have made several things and they have all turned out wonderfully. I like that the recipes are a little more "complex" than the BBB ones, combining flavors and making a more robust product.

Hope you enjoy it, Hilde, come back and tell us.

Ann

I was just looking at this Seasoned Tomato Sauce recipe, it says 12 cups = 6 pounds but in the other thread, it says 1 lb = 1.5 cups? Hilde, said she's been cooking it for HOURS and it is still thin... she didn't tell me how much she started with though.

Also, if you cook down 12 cups of tomato and 1 cup of onion, wouldn't you still have more than 4 cups in the end?

OK, we used the 1lb = 1.5 cups of puree math...

She doubled the recipe, in using the above formula, she used 18 cups puree & 2 cups onions. It made TRIPLE the recipe after cooking it down for many hours!

It's gonna take some math to figure this out, but I think we should be subtracting about 40% from what it calls for of cups of tomatoes if using puree (2.5 cups tomatoes vs. 1.5 cups puree.)

Does anybody understand this?

OK, I THINK I understand the issue.

I'll let you figure out the math; it's been a long day here. Too many paint fumes, I think, LOL.

1 pound of tomatoes = 2 cups CHOPPED or 1 1/2 cups CRUSHED or PUREED.

I posted the "tomato equation" on two different threads for two different forms of prepped tomatoes. Crushed or pureed tomatoes will have less volume than chopped ones.

I hope this makes sense. By the way, I should have cited my source on the equivalents: the new "Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving."

Carol

OK... I think what I'm saying is that the puree has much less waste than starting with whole tomatoes, seeding them & peeling, removing any cores, etc, that they are more concentrated (yes, that's a bad word to use here in this example.)

Here's what I mean...

If the seasoned tomato sauce recipe required 12c tomatoes & made 4c, there's both a lot of cookdown as well as waste. Hilde tried doubling the recipe but instead of using 24c, she used the 1.5c/lb formula, so the original recipe should have been 9c... but by doubling to 18, the recipe actually made 12c instead of 8c, even after all that cooking down.

My suggestion was this:

If instead of 24 cups you used 40% less (about 14.4) plus the 2c onions = 16.4 cups, cooked down in half would be a little over 8 cups! Double the original recipe! It may not actually be 40.0%. The 40% is 1.5c divided by 2.5c so 0.60 or 40% less. So 12c - 40% = 7.2c... plus the 1c onions = 8.2c...cook it down to half would give about the 4 cups the original recipe yielded. so however you look at it, 60% of the called for amount, or the called for amount minus 40%.

I wonder what Linda Lou thinks about this reasoning. Also, what about increasing the other ingredients? If Hilde adds 40% more onion & spices, that would probably be the mathematical solution to the 18 cups of puree, but that wouldn't go over too well regarding hi/lo acid ratio theories.

Another way to look at it: The 8 gallons of puree is equal to 53 quarts of tomatoes, not 32!

Any thoughts?

I have done this starting with 6 lb. tomatoes. I chop them roughly and get close to 6 cups. I usually chop more if needed or leave some out - in other words, I go for the 6 cups. The recipe says to cook down for 1 1/4. It is never thick enough for me after that time either, but I have never cooked for longer than 2 hours. I do get very close to the 4 cups the recipe says.

I think that variation will occur by the method of tomato prep (as you say), by how hard you cook it, and I also think that doubling it will make it take longer - just a bigger volume is harder to cook down in my experience (which isn't a lot).

6 cups? or 12 cups?

I'm very sorry - I should not have responded when I was tired.

With 6 lb of tomatoes, I get very close to 12 cups chopped.

Apologies for the confusion.

Yup, it's the "It's 1:30 in the morning and I'm waiting for this canner to finish," phenomenon.

Carol

this is a great thread! here's my problem whenever i'm trying to calculate puree-to-chopped ratios. i've been roasting the tomatoes before running them through the mill and i get about one quart of "juice" in the pan for every 1.5 - 2 quarts of puree.n so, my puree is already significantly thickened and i don't need to cook it down 50% (more like 25%) to get the right consistency. i've been adding other veggies proportionately based on my finished amount (always rounding down - which is easy, since i never add fresh peppers to anything and always figure i'm lacking a pretty significant low-acid ingredient).

and, carol - your remark is really on the nose! the ONLY thing i'm capable of thinking about these late nights, lately, is finding a good movie to watch while waiting for the canner's pressure to drop.

Don't be sorry Ann, the sauce was very good! I can adjust the consistency next time... Thanks everyone! This is fun!

Hilde