Ugh. (Sorry, my prejudice.) You can, but cooking wines are inferior wines that have other additives (to obscure how awful they are) and additional salt. Lots of salt. You might, for future reference, have a wine-drinking friend purchase or recommend a nice Merlot or Pinot Noir. There are lots of perfectly decent ones that won't cost any more than the fortified "cooking" wines. You can keep it just for cooking. Leftover wine can be frozen in ice cube trays and added to stews or saved for the next canning project. Freezing is perfectly fine for wine that's going to be used but not drunk from the glass. Carol

A good way to deal with tomatoes is to use the Villaware/Roma food strainer. They offer a 1/4 inch holed salsa screen that can give you minced tomato bits, and there would be no need to worry about skins and most of the seeds, as they are usually seperated and come out the waste end of the conical sieve. With this handd operated machine, you can make large amounts of salsa or sauces in less than 30 minutes. Adding more higher strength vinegar, or bottled lemon or lime juice can also help raise the acidity a bit as can adding citric acid. But as stated its not a safe recipe to can.

Sadly yes, I'm limited to water bath at this time. The plan was to buy a pressure canner and a dehydrator this summer but when my husband got laid off, those plans were canceled. In the past I've not had good luck making spaghetti sauce my kids would actually eat. The Chunky Basil one had such good reviews, I wanted to give it a shot. Since my freezers are full, I figured if I was going to practice, I wanted it to be a recipe I could can if it turned out well. I have a good sized garden (and since my parents own a greenhouse, they gave me the plants for free) as well as access to a local amish produce auction where stuff sells dirt cheap (a bushel of green bell peppers for chopping for $1.00, canning tomatoes for $4-6 a bushel, Onions for 20-25 cents a pound etc and my parents buy stuff there regularly and give me their extras in exchange for some of the stuff I can). I also have a good supply of lids I bought last year when stuff was clearanced out. Overall I'm not too worried if the Chunky Basil Sauce recipe doesn't taste as good as I hope. I can always use the extras up simply by dumping a jar in every time a make a batch of chili (my pot is 4 gallons so a quart can easily get lost in there), I just know I won't have $ to get regular wine anytime soon. And since I have virtually free supplies at hand to make it, I'm not out much besides my time if the cooking wine tastes funky. As long as I know the substitution is safe, I can use it up in one fashion or another. I just won't make more than 1 batch until we can test it out. Since we have spaghetti almost every Sunday since it's a supper quick meal to make after we get home for church, if I can find a suitable sauce, it will definitely help the wallet come this winter when I don't have access to so much produce. I got the salsa done today and if the kids behave well tomorrow I will be making the spaghetti sauce. I'll let you know how it turns out. Thanks again.

I would just like to add that even though you may not be a wine drinker or even like wine, using a wine let's say, "most people" wouldn't drink is going to adversely affect the flavor. I once used "cooking wine" and after watching a bevy of cooking shows and being constantly told, "use only a wine you would drink", I soon came to discover the method to that madness. I consider myself a pretty good cook and in those days (some 20 years ago)I was starting to branch out into more complex recipes. I also was not much of a wine drinker and definitely not an aficionado. I asked a number of different people for advice on which wines to use. A decent (doesn't have to be expensive) wine, will make an excellent dish. A funky, substandard wine can kill a dish. I wish I would have had this resource (GardenWeb) back then which would have saved me a lot of blah or even worse results in my cooking adventures with wine! Good luck with your sauce! I have had some fantastic results using wine, brandy and liqueurs in my jelly, jam, and preserve making adventures!