Is this the recipe you are referring to? If not would you please link to it? Multi-Use Tomato Sauce Amount Measure Ingredient -- Preparation Method -------- ------------ -------------------------------- 10 plum tomatoes -- (about 2 1/2 lbs./1 kg) 10 large tomatoes -- peeled and chopped (about 4 lbs./2 kg) 4 large garlic cloves -- minced 2 large stalks celery -- chopped 2 medium carrots -- chopped 1 large onion -- chopped 1 large zucchini -- chopped 1 large sweet green pepper -- chopped 1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes -- (125 mL) 2/3 cup dry red wine -- (150 mL) 1/2 cup red wine vinegar (5% strength or more) -- (125 mL) 2 bay leaves 1 tablespoon pickling salt -- (15 mL) 2 teaspoons dried oregano -- (10 mL) 2 teaspoons dried basil -- (10 mL) 1 teaspoon granulated sugar -- (5 mL) (optional) 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon -- (2 mL) (optional) 1/4 teaspoon ground pepper -- (2 mL) 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley -- (50 mL) Combine tomatoes, celery, garlic, onion, zucchini and green pepper in a very large non-reactive pan. Add 1 cup (250 mL) water. Bring to a boil over high heat, reduce heat and boil gently, covered, for 25 minutes or until mixture begins to thicken, stirring occasionally. Soak sun-dried tomatoes in boiling water until softened. Drain and dice. Add to sauce with wine, vinegar, bay leaves, salt, oregano, basil, sugar, cinamon and pepper. Continue to boil gently until desired consistency, stirring frequently. Discard bay leaves and stir in parsley. Remove hot jars from canner and ladle sauce into jars to within 1/2 inch (1 cm) of rim (head space). Process in a BWB 35 minutes for pint (500 mL) jars and 40 minutes for quart (1 L) jars. Yield:"12 cups" If so then you are trying to make some major changes in the recipe that will affect flavor and could affect the safety margin. Have you tried it as written? Yes you can leave out the celery but no you cannot add extra carrots. You can only sub like for like. You can pressure can it if you wish but would have to use the same time as given in the recipe. We can't guesstimate processing times. Why do you want to PC it? Freezing does affect flavor marginally but IMO is worth the time saving. You would be changing the density if you scrape and drain them first as you would be adding more tomatoes than called for to bring it up to weight. Normally you weigh and freeze and then use all when thawed. The recipe doesn't call for deseeding or draining either. If you don't want the seeds then remove them before freezing but use the number of fruit, not the weight as it will be less due to the loss weight of the seeds and if you tried to increase it to the weight level you'd be increasing the density. Same goes for roasting them. You can roast them but you can't use oil to do it and then you either use all the weight measurement, undrained or you go by number, not weight to retain the density. So rather than trying to make all these changes that can cause safety issues and will definitely affect the flavor why not just use one of the roasted tomato tomato sauce recipes instead? Dave

I found some really heavy Roma tomaotes at the Farmers' Market to try this recipe. I sliced the tomatoes into 1/4" rings. I even behaved myself and only used cheap-ish Merlot to soak the tomato rings. I dried copious amounts of basil, parsley and oregano -- herbs dry here overnight on the counter. After soaking I found that the skins were literally peeling off the rings... so I took them off. After drying in the dehydrator I had rings that weren't much more than a circle of string.... no body at all. I was soooo disappointed! The herbs were fine, so I tossed them into my mixed herb pot for future reference. So, what should I do next time so I have a more traditional dried tomato?

Quite a few family/friends are on a low salt diet, but we're getting together tonight and I promised to make these. I have been using the Bella Sun Luci brand of sun-dried tomato pesto sauce, which comes in a long narrow 8.5oz glass jar. It's easily available in the produce section of my local Safeway. I hadn't checked the sodium level of this brand before. To my surprise, a 1/4 cup serving has only 70mg of sodium! Since you only use a bare 1 Tblsp for each roll, this (outside of the cheese or filo) is adding only 17.5 mg of sodium. I haven't checked other brands of sun-dried tomato, but if they are equally as low, that's a very nice flavor bonus for something that's good for you (tomatoes are high in lycopene, among other things). As tomatoes are high in natural sodium, it's one of the first things most folks miss having when on a low-sodium diet. No-salt canned tomatoes are something of a shock when you first try them! Using this pesto is a nice way to add a tomato flavor without adding too much sodium, to all kinds of things - cream sauces, etc. Anyway, just thought I'd mention it. I also found whole-wheat filo pastry in our local organics grocery, which is an added healthy bonus. They don't seem to brown quite as well as regular filo, but they taste fine.

I know we're not supposed to can oil but I was sort of hoping some one would say, oh just a bit of oil in a large batch will be safe. I wish I could ask the two authors about this!