Remember, you can also can the plain puree. It will easily last two years (more than that actually) and can be thinned and seasoned for juice, used in soups, pasta sauces, etc. This would be the speediest and most versatile option.

OK, I hope this helps: 3 medium round garden tomatoes or 5 medium Italian plum tomatoes = 1 pound = 1 1/2 cups of crushed or pureed tomatoes.

Carol

Basically, Carol has given you the answer. It is tomato puree, AKA smushed up tomatoes. So it can be substituted for whole tomatoes on a cup for cup basis. The only difference is texture. Seems funny, doesn't it, because the puree has such a thin consistency. But that's my reasoning and I'm stick'n with it.

Jim

I've been making this recipe for almost 40 years, and it's still great and even people who aren't crazy about ketchup love it. It's from a 1960s Farm Journal Freezing and Canning Book. Since 7 qts is almost 2 gallons, this will help use up your surplus.

Western Gourmet Ketchup

7 qts tomato puree
3 Tbl salt
2/3 c. sugar
1 Tbl paprika
1/4 tsp. cayenne
1 Tbl. dry mustard
1 Tbl. whole black peppers
1 Tbl. whole allspice
1 Tbl. mustard seeds
4 bay leaves
4 chili peppers (or about the same quantity crushed hot peppers)
1 Tbl. dried basil
2 c. vinegar

Add all ingredients, except the vinegar, to the puree. Sprices hsould be tied loosely in cloth bag, and mustard blended in a little juice to prevent lumping. Cook until thick. When mixture is thickened, add vinegar and cook again until thick as desired.

Remove spices. Pour into hot jars and process in boiling water bath 15 minutes. Makes 4-5 pints

This will not be as thick as store bought, but it sure is good.

In the photo above, it appears that you canned your tomatoes in plastic jugs? If so, were they heat processed somehow. or are you planning on freezing these plastic jugs? If the tomatoes are in these plastic jugs, and have had no processing, they may be unsafe to use. If you're wanting a sauce for pizza, you can add canned tomato paste, or cook the liquid down to a thickness level that you like.

Thanks for the replies. Ken, all we did was run all the tomatoes through the Spremy into 4-gallon food-grade buckets with lids... but we figured it would be easier putting the puree into smaller containers so funneled the puree into eight Arizona tea gallon jugs for convenience. That's why we need recipes asap... we are refrigerating and freezing the jugs until we decide what to do, hopefully soon. We can always cook it down and then decide, but think we should do it asap.

Mark

Yes, tomatoes once strained tend to spoil quickly. Cooking them down some can help reduce the total amount. Some people like to bake the tomato sauces in shallow flat pans in the oven. This helps to remove more moisture quicker, as opposed to boiling on the stove top. I've done it here and had a really nice thick sauce in about an hour.

Oh My Gosh, Make Pasta sauce. Good day to heat up the kitchen. It was 33 Sunday morning south of Buffalo. I have 3 bushels of tomatoes looking at me right now. Raw pack, Salsa and more Roasted Tomato garlic soup.

ummmmmmmmmm shirley could i get a recipie for that rostted tomato garlic soup sorry to ask but if i don't my wife is going to kill me lol she heard your post as i read it to her said you need that recipie

as for all those tommatoes i seen in those jugs first thing i saw was a pile of salsa ofcourse i love salsa can't wait to try annies salsa recipie

Hi Mater Mark --

Here is Katie C's delicious recipe for Roasted Tomato and Garlic Soup... Also, I agree with the other posters -- just can the tomato puree as is!

Roasted Tomato Garlic Soup
Recipe By :Katie C
12 tomatoes -- *see Note
2 carrots -- cut in 1" pieces
1 large onion -- quartered
2 whole heads garlic -- peeled (or more, to taste)
olive oil
2 cups chicken broth -- (or 3)
1/2 cup chopped fresh basil -- (or 1 Tbsp. dried)
cream -- to taste

Core tomatoes and cut in half. Place, cut side up, on foil covered cookie sheet with carrots, onion and garlic. Brush with olive oil. Bake at 400F for about an hour, or until vegies are roasted and a little blackened. Place in a large saucepan with the chicken broth and basil and simmer for about 10 minutes. Blend with a stick blender (or in small batches in a blender) until almost smooth. Add cream to taste. To can: Process in a pressure canner, pints for 60 min. and quarts for 70 min.For dial gauge canners use 11 pounds pressure at 0-2000 ft., 12 lbs. at 2001-4000 ft., 13 lbs. at 4001-6000 ft. and 14 lbs. above 6000 ft. For weighted gauge canners use 10 lbs. pressure at 0-1000 ft., and 15 lbs. over 1000 ft. *Note: These measurements are approximate...I use whatever it takes to cover the cookie sheet. This makes 1 1/2 to 2 quarts of soup.

find some wild game, this stuff would be great to tenderize some moose or deer meat...

I am so envious! WOW!

How about Chili sauce? My Grandma said she had a really good recipe for it she used to make. Do a google search, I am sure you could find a good one... :)

Good luck!

When you say chili sauce, do you mean hot sauce, like Frank's that's used on Buffalo Wings or do you mean meat chili sauce like on chili dogs... or something else?

As for the Roasted tomato & garlic soup, can I make it with puree? say a gallon of puree? Otherwise I'll make it with tomatoes from the yard, same for more of Annie's salsa. I think I still have over a hundred heads of garlic left but will be replanting some of it.

Hilde, who posted a question about a recipe safeness a couple days ago, is currently cooking down a couple gallons of the puree right now at her place, but she doesn't have a pressure canner there to make low acid stuff... I may take her mine tonite or tomorrow. She's in the 'burbs about a half hour away so I'd like to go there with a plan and all the ingredients present.

I went to 4 stores looking for more jars, they are getting hard to find. We figured to start with pizza sauce in half pints (I make pizza from scratch 1-2x per month), V8 juice, she wanted to try that ketchup, and I'm thinking of sauce with or without meat. I'd love to make more Annie's Salsa but this puree may be too thin to start from--maybe add a couple cans of diced tomatoes?

Keep the suggestions coming. Thanks!

Hey there...Some other wonderful person gave me these recipes that I copied from another thread...I've tried both and put my own personal notes at the end :)

Seasoned Tomato Sauce
12 cups chopped ripe tomatoes (about 5 lb.)
1 cup chopped onion
2 cloves minced garlic
2 tbsp chooped fresh oregano or 1 tsp dried
2 tsp granulated sugar
tsp freshly ground black pepper
2 bay leaves
2 tbsp lemon juice
½ tsp salt
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 thich, about 1 ¼ hours, stir frequently Add lemon juice and salt.
Remove hot jars from canner and ladle sauce into jars to within ½ inch of rim. Process 35 minute for half-pint or pint jars.
Makes about 4 cups.
Variations when using
Combine 2 cup seasoned tomato sauce, ½ tsp each dried oregano, dried basil, and dried parsley, and 1 clove crushed garlic.

**VERY tasty, but pretty herby. Would make a great pizza sauce as is, or try cutting the herbs down for a spagetti sauce. Add whatever veggies you like when heating it up to eat**

Spaghetti Sauce (Chunky Basil Pasta Sauce)

The recipe comes from Small-Batch Preserving by Ellie Topp and Margaret Howard. This makes 8 cups.
Ingredients
8 cups (2 L) coarsely chopped peeled tomatoes -- (about 9-12 tomatoes or 4 lb/2 kg)
1 cup chopped onion -- (250 mL)
3 cloves garlic -- minced
â cup red wine -- (150 mL)
â cup red wine vinegar (5 % strength) -- (75 mL)
½ cup chopped fresh basil -- (125 mL)
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley -- (15 mL)
1 teaspoon pickling salt -- (5 mL)
½ teaspoon granulated sugar -- (2 mL)
1 6-oz/156 mL) can tomato paste

Combine tomatoes, onion, garlic, wine, vinegar, basil, parsley, salt, sugar and tomato paste in a very large non-reactive pan. Bring to a boil over high heat, reduce heat to low and simmer, uncovered, for 40 minutes or until mixture reaches desired consistency, stirring frequently.
If canning, remove hot jars from canner and ladle sauce into jars to within ½ inch (1 cm) of rim (head space). Process 35 minutes for pint (500 mL) jars and 40 minutes for quart (1 L) jars in a BWB.

If the sauce is too tart, add a tablespoon of sugar or grape jam. If you are not canning the sauce, try omitting the vinegar and upping the red wine to 1 cup total. Use a wine you like to drink. The sauce also freezes nicely.

***First time I made it with a white wine and rice vinegar (it's all I had around the house at the time - I wasn't canning it though). It came out very tasty and "light". I've also tried it with the red wine and it was very tasty and pretty hearty. If you try making it with balsamic vinegar (as directed for canning)...use a *light* hand with it, like maybe 1/2 balsamic & 1/2 something else. If you make it as directed with a red wine and balsamic it'll knock you over ;) You loose alot of the "fresh" tomato flavor IMO***

That's all I got :)

Have fun!
Laura

We use the puree as the base for a 'universal tomato sauce', with finely chopped (food processor) garlic, onion, and peppers from the garden. We don't flavor it beyond that. I add Contadina tomato paste as a thickener. Thats the only brand I can get here that tastes like tomato, not just paste. Saves hours in cooking time, and preserves that fresh tomato taste very well. We can it in qt jars.

We use if for soups, stews, all kinds of pasta dishes, chili, pizza sauce, base for bbq sauce, and so on, depending on the dish, we add flavorings - salt, oregano, chili powder, beef broth, ground black pepper, or what ever combination the dish calls for.

Thanks Laura... I have almost everything except the wine.

Thanks David... Do you use a recipe? How much paste, onions & peppers added to, say, a gallon of my puree?

Laura, where is the balsamic vinegar in the canning instructions? Topp's recipe calls for red wine vinegar, not balsamic. 1/3 of a cup of balsamic would be very intense. Red wine vinegar is much milder.

Carol

korney19, I just finished a batch. Approx 2.5 gallons of puree + 5 heads of garlic, 5 X 4" dia onions, and 5 X 4" large green peppers, just the good parts. I run the garlic through the food processor first, then add the onion and pepper, it fills the processor right up. I add that to the puree, bring it all to a simmer, let it simmer for about 15 minutes, at which point the onion bits aren't all floating. I then added 4 X 12 oz cans of tomato paste, its easiest to stir that in with a big wisk. Bring it back to a boil, it can start to send out flying blobs and if the heat is too high, it can scorch. Put it in hot qt jars, and process 20 minutes. I got 10 qts.

If you're worried about the acidity, it wouldn't hurt to add a cup of vinegar.

Have you ever done a pH test on that? The tomatoes are marginal at best, not to mention the low-acid garlic, peppers and onion. If there are botulism spores, BWB won't kill them, just temporarily take care of the current toxins.

Carol

Well, I look at it this way. What I'm producing isn't going to be eaten with a spoon out of the jar, it is an ingredient that goes into stews, or pasta dishes, and so on, that are reboiled and recooked later after opening.

pH of tomato paste is around the 3.5 range, and I add a lot of that, 48 ounces. I also suggested adding vinegar if one was concerned, and many similar recipes ask for a teaspoon or so of lemon juice for the same effect.

I originally worked this up - extrapolated upwards from a recipe for Double-Homeland security - XX-checked tomato sauce, many years ago, and if one does this backwards, then you have about 1/3 onion, clove of garlic, and half a pepper per qt of puree, and then toss in 4 oz of acidic tomato paste.

On the other thread re the actual dangers of botulism from home canning, there has been 1 case, in the last 10 years, of someone getting botulism from tomato sauce.

But by all means, if you don't feel secure in using this recipe, abandon it.

(sorry I lost this thread)
Chili sauce, I use on pork roast. Its sorta a little bit spicier than ketchup.

Hey,
I have been making a wonderful beef and barley tomato soup with my frozen tomatoes. I pressure cook the beef bones with onion, garlic and paprika, salt and pepper about 1 and a half hours at fifteen pounds, then take out the bones, skim the fat. I add two cups barley, two quarts frozen tomatoes, one half cup brown rice, one cup celery, and another two onions, a few red peppers from the freezer, simmer for an hour until the barley is good and soft, salt and pepper to taste. It's wonderful:)

Hey Carol
It does say to use a red wine vinager, my husband likes balsamic ALOT though. I checked my bottle and it was appropriatly acidic (5%) so I tried that.

It was enough to knock your socks off :) I think it will be okay for something meaty...just not plain pasta I think. Definatly lesson learned :laughs: and I won't be doing *that* again!

Mark....I should also add about the needing recipes in general. You can also can plain tomato puree...just make sure you put some acid in it! (I added the acid to individual jars as suggested by the blue book and all the smart folks here) You can figure out some good recipes by the time you crack into them ;)

If you like balsamic that's great, though I'd think it'd definitely make for a memorable sauce!

I was just concerned someone else might think that's what the recipe required and get a shock when they tasted it.

Carol

Thanks everbody, any other good recipes keep them coming please... I got my freezer door open and have loads more maters...plus the plants are still loaded & no frost & 80 degree days. I will save some of the ripe ones for more Heirloom Annie's Salsa.

So far we made 4 qts spaghetti sauce and I think 12 half pints of pizza sauce... I think Hilde was gonna try Chili, she picked up my pressure canner yesterday...

Hilde was a busy bee with my canner... Sunday she brought it back with V8 juice, ketchup, chili con carne, pizza sauce, etc! It even came back cleaner than when she took it! I still have a gallon of puree frozen at a friend's house, plus everything in the basement freezer still. Plus plants are still producing. Maybe next up will be the tomato garlic soup.

I asked the puree volume question (also see this thread: Is this pizza sauce recipe for canning safe? to 2 different places, one was that edu canning site (Elizabeth Andress/National Center for HFP) and the other was Ball/Jarden. Since the one has a Confidentially Disclaimer, I'll post Ball's reply below; basically, I asked this:

> question -> I processed in an electric tomato strainer (Spremy) an unknown amount of homegrown heirloom tomatoes. The Spremy removes the skin & seeds and delivers a puree-like juice.... I have 8 gallons of this, fresh and uncooked in any way, some refrigerated and some frozen. How would I adapt volume (gallons, quarts, etc) to your recipes which are often based on pounds or cups of tomatoes? I would like to make pizza sauce, spaghetti sauce, V8 type juice, etc, but don't know how much of this puree/juice to use when your recipes call for pounds or bushels or cups of tomatoes.

Ball's reply, to me, sounds like you prep/measure the puree based on the final yield. Here's their reply:

Thank you for your message. For pizza and spaghetti sauce: puree tomatoes, cook pulp (puree) until it is reduced by one-half. Measure 7 quarts (or volume equal to recipe yield) and add other ingredients as instructed in recipe, process according to recipe.

For juice: puree tomatoes, measure 7 quarts (or volume equal to recipe yield) and add other ingredients as instructed in recipe, process according to recipe.

We hope this is helpful and appreciate you contacting us.

Sincerely,

Consumer Affairs
Jarden Home Brands

Thanks for sharing that. It's always helpful to hear directly from the source.

Carol