Leave out the carrots, add some chopped up sweet mixed pickles, and a can of chopped leechee nuts. No dry mustard, but yes on ginger and also garlic. Clear Jel is OK to use, if you keep the acidity high, hence the carrots not being added. Clear Jel holds up better to high acid and will not seperate. Add sweet peppers red and green peppers for color. If you want an orancy taste, which is usually a seperate sauce, add some orange juice and grated rind. I make some fresh and then pour it into a big quart jar and mix it with other batches. Most of mine are no or low sugar, and with high acid, they don't spoil in the fridge. No recipe, just taste as you go along. Add the Clear Jel as the last ingredient once you get a flavor you like. Can in pints.

Deanna,
Do you have the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving ? There is a recipe for Golden Gossip Chutney. It has apples, carrots, green pepper,onions, etc. All the things you want basically. Instead of the apples, use pineapple in it. Don't thicken with Clear Jel or pectin before canning. Do that as you heat it up.
I has ginger, garlic, and some tomato paste. It calls for dates, but don't think you would need them. Especially since they are higher in ph than 4.6 anyway. It is on page 252. You could leave out the cinnamon stick so it would be more like the sweet n sour sauce. It calls for malt vinegar, so you know you can use any 5 % acidity vinegar. I would use cider vinegar. It also has some bottled lemon juice to raise the acid level. This seems it would work and be safe to me.
I don't think the restaurant sauce has any orange juice in it, normally it is tomato based to get that color.
Much safer than trying to invent your own recipe......

Thanks Lindalou. I do have the Ball Complete... I didn't want to invent one, just hoping there was something out there already. :-)
I'm not a big chutney fan so usually don't even look at those, but it makes sense that they would have similiar combination of low and high acid stuff that I'm looking for.

Ken, thanks for the ideas. When I wrote "orange-y" sauce I was refering to the color rather than flavor of the sauce. Didn't mean to confuse the issue. I definitely don't want an orange flavor!

When I make it from scratch (not canned), it's a base of cider vinegar, sugar or Splenda, ketchup or tomato paste, thickened with cornstarch. Then heated with chunks of onion, peppers, pineapple and carrots. Served with pork or chicken over rice usually. Good, but not for canning, obviously!

Deanna (off to check BBB, Small Batch and Ball Complete)

What I stated as to needed ingredients and added acid would be quite safe. Pineapple and added vinegar will offer sufficient acidity to BWB can, no matter what was stated above. I would use mostly dried sweet peppers and NO carrots, so that whatever is added is either naturally high in acid or soaks up the acid in the liquid. Clear Jel is the ONLY thicker recommended for home caning and it remains stable after canning and holds up very well to any and all high acid foods. Ketchup, and tomato paste are also hgh in acid. The only ingredients lower in acid are the peppers and onions, and if you use dried, there will be absolutely no safety issues of any kind. The BBB may list list one, but because COMMON SENSE is used here, and all of the product will get acid added, it will can very safely. I may decide to make some too, and add the unusual taste of leechee nuts which have the texture of pears, but have a taste like no other. A local Chinese resturant makes a sweet and sour sauce with sweet mixed pickles and even red cherries. Its served over batter fried fish or chicken. The txture is like it was made with corn syrup and is very sticky, compared to store bought. I use crushed pineapple in mine too. Carrots are better if stir fried with a few other veggies, even fresh sweet peppers and onions stir fried. You should not be afraid of the recipe if its modified like I stated as its never going to get you sick or go bad with all the acid it contains, from pineapple and also cider vinegar. To get it even more sour you can also add bottled lemon juice and/or citric acid. Without 'invention' where would we be today? Keep in mind that your not reinventing the wheel or making a dangerous concoction of poison.

Deanna,
I went through that recipe and find it easily adapted for a sauce. Just thicken after opening, as I said earlier.
We know Clear Jel is only safe for pie filling or jams and a few relishes.

Its not necessary to thicken after opening. If that were the case, then Clear Jel would not be recommened for ANY home canning of ANY KIND. Think of the sweet and sour sauce as a pie filling- apple, cherry, blueberry, peach, pineapple, and lemon can all be canned at home and you can use the Clear Jel to thcken them BEFORE they are canned. Its not rocket science and is not something that would explode or turn into a toxic poison!!

There's no need to argue over it.
I just asked if anyone had a recipe.
My reason was more looking for a way to be able to preserve the carrots, peppers and onions in a sauce that we already know we like.
Obviously there are multiple ways to do that (thicken sauce only, no veggies, thicken later, use some dried veggies, etc.).
I don't want to dry stuff first. If I'm going to do that, I've already solved the "preservation" issue.
It's pretty darned easy to make it as I need it, but was just wondering if others had created a sauce with the chunks of veggies.

I'm not afraid to do some experimentation, up to MY risk tolerance. That may be different than others, and that's OK. I may just try making a big batch fresh and freezing it instead! No worries that way!

For now, I think it's "off the table". Will see how the carrot, onion and pepper supply is in a few weeks.

Thanks,
Deanna

Make it similar to canned pie filling, but reduce the Clear Jel to make it a sauce as opposed to a pudding. Its easy to do, and you can be assured safe if you use the basic ingredients mentioned. Most store bought bottled sweet and sour sauce has only acidic juices and fruits. A few dry packets have dried peppers and corn starch, but are intended to fresh use only. There is absolutely NO risk of safety, so I would just take the skeptics opinions with a grain of salt. Oh, speaking of salt, add a bit of soy sauce to the mixture instead of plain salt. Because carrots are dense and are fairly low acid, please leave them out until its served, unless you want to pressure can the mix.

Hi Deanna,

This may get you close to what you want. I was just looking through the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. On page 262 There's a Two-in-One Barbecue Sauce.

The base contains plum tomatoes, green bell peppers, onions, garlic, mustard seed, celery seed, and crushed dried chili pepper. This is prepared as a puree.

From that base you can make either a molasses-type barbecue sauce with malt vinegar, Worcestershire, chili powder and pepper OR a Sweet 'n' Sour Sauce with gingerroot, honey, cider vingar, soy sauce and canned crushed pineapple with juice.

It's not thickened but that's easy enough to do after opening.

I know this isn't an exact match for what you want, but it could be worth looking into as an alternative.

I also found a recipe online at the link. I have no idea what the source for the recipe is or whether the poster has a food science background, but it might be worth emailing her. If you learn something, could you let us know?
Carol

Here is a link that might be useful: Mandarin Sweet and Sour Sauce

Thanks Carol. That link sounds really, really close to what I'm looking for. I can add my carrots (or not) to the finished dish instead of canning. I think I'll email her and see what background (or not) she has or the source of the recipe. It "looks" safe enough. I KNOW that's not any way to judge, but comparing it to Annie's salsa in the quantities of ingredients and their acidity, there's 3 times more acid and less low acid ingredients.

I'll check out the BBQ sauce recipes too.

Deanna

Deanna, Brokenbar also posted a while back a canned carrot with pineapple combination (pressure-canned). It may be you could come up with some sort of "dump" recipe that calls for "1 jar of this and 1 jar of that."

Carol

The more I think about it, the more I may decide to just can the "saucy" part, no veggies.
I like the crisp/tender texture of the peppers, carrots and onions in my cooking recipe and I'll never get that with canned veggies.
If I just adapt a recipe to have the sugar, vinegar, pineapple juice, tomato base that I like, I can easily steam or stir fry the veggies and meat and dump the sauce over them.

It could also be used as a meat glaze that way too.

Still thinking....

Deanna