Mine has tons of garlic, fresh oragano, tomatoes, peppers, onions, celery and that is about it (plus tomato paste and vinegar to make it safe to can.

Is this an approved canning recipe or one you just made up? I assume you are pressure canning it at least? How does the tomato paste contribute to safety?

Dave

It may taste wonderful, but it doesn't sound safe to me.
You cannot safely make up your own recipe and can it.

Hey, dirtundermyfingers,

I just wanted to answer your actual post to say that yes, I agree --- once you've tasted homemade, you never want to go back to Hunt's, that's for sure! I started canning just to use up my extra tomatoes (I grew a lot so I could try different varieties). But I got used to having the good stuff around, and now it's the other way around---I make it a point to grow enough tomatoes and can enough sauce to feed me and DH all winter!

Good luck with your new canned goods business.

I do agree with Dave and Linda Lou that you would do best to follow the modern NCHFP recommendations for your recipes; that way you can be 100% certain that the foods you can and sell are safe.

But probably you are doing that already?

If not, can I suggest you get a Ball Blue Book, or a copy of Ellie Topp's Complete Small Batch preserving (her chunky herbed pasta sauce is to die for!) and use one of those recipes? Then you can tell your customers you're following all the current safety regulations. (In some states you MUST do that if you sell canned goods.)

Happy tomato saucing!

Zabby

Okay, this was just meant to be a tongue in cheek commentary on how homegrown things taste better than store bought. Yes MOM and DAD this is an appoved recipe. I have been canning for many years, sorry didn't post all the ingredients, and always, always err on the side of caution, in fact I won't even eat most others canned goods unless they know the rules.

Jeesh, try to write a funny but get slammed. Sorry dudes walking back out of the forum.

Stacie
(YOU may remember me as girlsingardens, who one summer canned 400 goodies)

BTW I am pressure canning it to increase safety, Canning it in pints. I used Annie's salsa recipe and instead of cilantro used oregano, other than that I guess it could be called Italian Salsa. I am hurt though that everyone wants to slam everyone around here.

Stacie

Thanks Zabby, I am using the current methods, with 4 little ones under 7 who all eat my goodies, I don't want to endanger anyone with my canned goods.

Stacie

I don't think anyone "slammed" you. We have no way of knowing your level of experience or whether or not you use current guidelines. And # of years canning sure isn't any valid indicator that it is being done correctly or safely.

All we can go on is the information you post. And the statement Mine has tons of garlic, fresh oragano, tomatoes, peppers, onions, celery and that is about it (plus tomato paste and vinegar to make it safe to can. could easily mislead readers into unsafe practices.

It in no way indicates you are using an approved spaghetti sauce recipe, not with all those low acid ingredients and fresh herbs. And all approved spaghetti sauces MUST be pressure canned. But the vinegar/paste reference does show some possible misunderstanding on your part of what the safety guidelines are. Thus the questions.

And if, as you say, I used Annie's salsa recipe and instead of cilantro used oregano, other than that I guess it could be called Italian Salsa. then no, you are NOT using an approved spaghetti sauce recipe. You are making up your own spaghetti sauce recipe. So perhaps our concerns are valid ones after all.

Dave

Hey, dirtundermyfingers, (Stacie!)

I understand how you might've felt not very welcome when the first two posts you saw didn't say anything about your actual post (which was a fun celebration of fresh-tasting stuff, as you say!) but only lectured on safety.

I've been on this forum for years and it frustrates me how sometimes lately it seems like EVERY discussion turns into such a lecture. I wish people wouldn't post at all if they're only going to post something grouchy or condescending, but this is an open forum --- people can post what they like. That aspect has its good and bad sides!

But I hope you won't abandon the forum and will keep coming back to tell us about your adventures in canning. Your little home-canning business venture (or maybe it's not so little??) sounds great--it's nice to hear of home-canned goods spreading to more people.

And hopefully you can understand that since many people DO post here about canning with methods and recipes that don't follow modern safety guidelines, and often don't know about those guidelines --- canning not being so common any more, though it seems to be making a comeback! --- it's meant as a kindness to share those guidelines.

I say, just ignore any posts you find condescending or annoying and keep talkin' to folks who want to hear you; I am sure there are plenty more here who do.

Best wishes,

Z

I hear you on the home made stuff tasting better. Just this afternoon, my 5 year old came up from the basement with the last 2 jars of store bought spaghetti sauce. She told me we were going to donate them to the food bank since she will only eat home canned marinara sauce from now on. Gosh - I love that child!

Dave,

My spaghetti sauce is an Italian salsa, So what is a name. Get over it, I said that I was writing a tongue in cheek article about flavors, didn't need a lecture. What is with the GW and THS that everyone seems to be out on a witch hunt??

Stacie

Dave, how is substitution of oregano for cilantro unsafe? If all else remains the same and she chooses to call it Italian Salsa or Spaghetti Sauce, serves it with noodles, chips or raw fish, whatever difference does it make?

Tracy - good question. It isn't a problem as long as you substitute fresh for fresh if fresh is called for in the original recipe (as in Annie's Salsa). But you can't sub fresh for dried and the approved spaghetti sauce recipes call for dried.

But the info provided in any original post is what determines the nature of the replies. It sets the tone. So initially no one had any way of knowing at the time that this is apparently really some sort of Italian Salsa, not spaghetti sauce as indicated. It's like some one saying, as has happened here often, that they canned tomato sauce and want to know if it is safe. We reply accordingly. Then they later they reveal that their "tomato sauce" contained onions, peppers, garlic, etc. Not the same thing at all so the info given them was incorrect, misleading, and was a waste of everyone's time.

While fresh herbs would be safe to do in salsa because salsa also also calls for 1 cup of vinegar or other acid and can be done in a BWB, no safe spaghetti sauce recipe calls for 1 cup of vinegar/acid, no spaghetti sauce recipe allows for fresh herbs either and requires pressure canning. That's why the OP sounded like a very unsafe mix.

Dave

Fresh herbs I did add vinegar, red wine vinegar 5%acidity, and canned in a pressure canner.

Besides, I didn't ask in anyway if it was safe.

Dave if you feel that it's a waste of time SOB (scroll on by) and don't post.

And WHO made YOU the king of canning as to that there is "no spaghetti sauce that calls for 1 cup acid and fresh herbs" YOU DON"T KNOW EVERY APPROVED RECIPE IN THIS WORLD>)
Stacie

Good grief! Do you have the expression 'getting your knickers in a twist' in the States? Stacie - people were only expressing a concern, which you could have quickly allayed, rather than perceiving a personal attack. I find people on this board very accommodating, even when I pull their legs about the US hygiene obsession - no one is out to attack you. Lind Lou, I notice has not responded, possibly because she is slightly surprised at the vehemence of your reaction and doesn't want to feed the fire. So I'll speak on her behalf if I may. I have no idea who she is and am never likely to but she is consistently helpful, interested and knows a huge amount about her subject. I also have no idea who you are but I read your first post with interest and will keep reading them. Keep posting whenever you want to. If you think people who replied are pedantic twits what does it matter? Life's too short to get in state over what a total stranger says on an internet forum. If you don't like it ignore it.

Flora, who brews pasta sauces in a cauldron in the garden from frogs and nettles, and keeps them in old jam jars in the shed.

(No, Linda Lou - not really. I always make fresh and have never even considered canning them, promise. But the frogs do add a certain something.)

Must say, I have to agree with Stacy. I lurk in this forum, get some good recipes, but good grief, people, quit the lecturing... if someone asks if their recipe is safe, tell them, otherwise, leave it alone. I's not like Stacie actually posted her recipe..

pixielou,

That child is a keeper indeed!

Stacie,

So, do you have fun labels for your canning goods to sell?

Z, who really was interested in the topic of your original post! tell us more! ;-)

Home made is always better than store bought. You'd have to be a really lousy cook to have your cooking taste worse than the commercial stuff.

The big companies have to keep costs down. They have to pay for packaging, shipping, and advertising.

The home cook doesn't. The home cook can put all that budget into buying good quality ingredients, and can put in a couple of the more expensive ingredients. (I think that anything more costly than sawdust is regarded as too expensive by the big conglomerates.)

Also, some of us can use good fresh picked, right-off-the-vine ingredients. The big guys don't have that luxury.

The commercial food processors know that the right proportion of salt, fat, and sugar acts like a drug on the brain to make people eat more. Since we are more interested in our family's health and don't actually hope our family will eat too much and get fat, we can easily cook meals that are much more healthy.

I've been reading posts on here for a long time and have been posting more recently. I don't see asking or pointing out the inherent safety concerns of the recipes as a bad thing. I've been doing a lot of canning lately and turning a lot of friends and family onto canning and to this website as a great source of information.

However, if I came upon this site for the first time, with little knowledge of canning it could lead to disastrous results if recipes that are potentially unsafe are not at least noted. I had over 20 Roma plants in this year and I'm very excited to make sauce this year. If I didn't know enough about canning I could come onto the Harvest forum, search for spaghetti sauce, find this post, and think that any recipe with a ton of garlic, herbs etc, was fine as long as I added vinegar to make it acidic.

Stacie...the first three posts after the original that asked about the recipe said nothing negative towards you, didn't put down your canning skills, or tell you, you are killing people. They simply asked about the origins of your recipe so people who are newer at this don't take tomatoes, a bunch of veggies, paste, and vinegar as a safe BWB recipe. No harm at all.

And WHO made YOU the king of canning as to that there is "no spaghetti sauce that calls for 1 cup acid and fresh herbs" YOU DON"T KNOW EVERY APPROVED RECIPE IN THIS WORLD>)
Stacie

Never claimed to be any king, that's your words. But actually it isn't all that difficult to know the approved ones as there are so few of them for spaghetti sauce since it is a low acid product. NCHFP/USDA publications, which includes the ones in So Easy to Preserve, and those in the Ball/Bernardin books. That's it. There aren't any in Small Batch Preserving.

Oh, and there might be one in the new BH&G canning book. Can't say as it is just published but since it uses USDA guidelines it is likely the same as the NCHFP one.

Dave

Stacie - I did not see very much criticism here. However I would like to offer you some advice. I owned a food manufacturing company. I made dry mixes/blends of seasonings. My signature product was a blend of dehydrated peppers and seasonings that you could use with fresh tomatoes to make salsa. This was 15 years ago and I was selling at a Farmer's Market. All the specialty food stores wanted it. I was on the cover of a local magazine as the hottest new business owner. One thing you should prepare yourself for is that even though my signature product skyrocketed - I still ran across people at the farmer's market and product demos in stores that would insult me on a regular basis. Examples would be:

I can make this better.
This tastes horrible.
You need to go to college. I won't have my daughter sampling salsa for a living.

In other words......what you heard here is tame compared to what strangers will say to your face. Toughen up as you will always have to treat each person like they are your favorite - whether you like them or not.

I had to sell the company due to cancer. The woman who had the winning bid ran it promptly into the ground. She was not prepared to deal with the harsh realities of getting to the Farmer's Market at 4:00am and listening to people insult her on a regular basis.

Thanks Teresa I do have a thin skin:) That is something I really hadn't thought much about. Mostly I am selling to friends who want a good product. I give away tons of my stuff and thought that this would be a way to earn some money. I have to think about how I handle things and if I can take it :)

Stacie

"But actually it isn't all that difficult to know the approved ones as there are so few of them for spaghetti sauce since it is a low acid product. NCHFP/USDA publications, which includes the ones in So Easy to Preserve, and those in the Ball/Bernardin books. That's it. There aren't any in Small Batch Preserving."

Well, it may not call itself spaghetti sauce, but there is "Chunky Basil Pasta Sauce" with fresh herbs and veges in Small Batch Preserving,

and also "Roasted Vegetable Pasta Sauce" with both veges and fresh herbs in Small Batch Preserving,

and also "Seasoned Tomato Sauce" with veges and fresh herbs that Small Batch Preserving suggests using in "pasta sauces, soups, stews, pizza, or casseroles."

So, although the OP did leave the door open to reasonable questions about recipe safety, it is also good to take care in making broad statements about recipes which include such phrases as "there are no recipes which. . .", or "all approved recipes for (pasta sauce, salsa, whatever) MUST be. . ." since there may well be a safe recipe which allows such processing.

For example: you CAN use fresh herbs in the approved NCHFP spaghetti sauce recipe, as this email from Elizabeth Andress states:
Thank you for visiting the National Center for Home Food Preservation.
> question -> Spaghetti Sauce without Meat:
> 1. Can I eliminate the celery/peppers completely?
> 2. Can I use fresh herbs or only dried?
> 3. Can I add basil (fresh or dried)?
> 4. Can I eliminate the sugar?

For our particular procedures: http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/how/can_03/spaghetti_sauce.html

1. You can leave out the celery and peppers completely, leaving everything else the same. (The mushrooms are already optional, also.)
2. If you use fresh herbs, make sure they are very clean. I can only recommend using the equivalent volume measures, though, and that may not give you the flavor you desire. Eg., instead of 2 TBSP dried oregano, use 2 TBSP minced fresh oregano. I do not have enough information to know the upper limit on how much fresh to add, so that's all I can suggest without testing. (which we cannot do).
3. You can use basil as a substitute for one of the other herbs (eg, you may not want the parsley with basil). Or, if you are leaving out the celery and peppers completely, you could add 2 to 4 TBSP of basil.
4. Yes, you can eliminate the sugar in this recipe.
   The chopped celery and/or peppers and the sugar add a little moisture/liquid in many recipes. In this particular sauce, however, it is cooked down to thickened consistency anyway, so the amount of liquid that would be added by these ingredients would not be important as it might be in other types of food products/mixtures.
   Best wishes,
   Elizabeth Andress
   --------------------------------------
   Elizabeth L. Andress, Ph.D.
   Project Director, National Center for HFP
   Professor and Extension Food Safety Specialist
   Department of Foods and Nutrition
   The University of Georgia
   208 Hoke Smith Annex
   Athens, GA 30602-4356
   Phone: (706) 542-3773
   FAX: (706) 542-1979
   -----------------------------------------------

Thank you, Flora. You seem to know me well from being on here for a long time.
Stacie,
I was NOT slamming YOU. I do not see where I said a word about you as a person. A person and a recipe are 2 totally different things. I had no idea if you were being serious or not. I can't tell that from your post. You are new here.
I was only trying to insure your safety.
Yes, we tend to do things safely around here.
Sorry if you don't happen to like that about some of us.
I teach food preservation as a profession,in case you did not know that. So, of course, I tend to just do that in my posts.
Sorry you feel offended.

Linda Lou,

I have been around here for some time, and I know and greatly respect your opnion and your wanting to watch out for safety, heck I have been known to tell others about how their practices are unsafe. Sorry for the crabbies from me. I appreciate all that you do and your efforts in safety.

Again I am sorry I was such a crabby patty:)

Stacie

Stacie,
Thank you and I see no reason for us to not be friends !
I appreciate what you said.
Best wishes on your venture.