This is still my favorite. From Ellie Topp's Small Batch Preserving. CHUNKY BASIL PASTA SAUCE 8 cups coarsely chopped peeled tomatoes -- (about 9-12 tomatoes or 4 lb) 1 cup chopped onion 3 cloves garlic, minced 2/3 cup red wine 1/3 cup red wine vinegar 1/2 cup chopped fresh basil 1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley 1 teaspoon pickling salt 1/2 teaspoon granulated sugar 1 6-oz 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. Remove hot jars from canner and ladle sauce into jars to within 1/2 inch of rim Process 35 minutes for pint jars and 40 minutes for quart jars in a BWB. Makes 8 cups. Steve

There are tested recipes on the NCHFP's Web site. There is one without meat and one with meat. Take a look and see if you think you might like them. They do require a pressure canner, however. I don't can mine, only because I get too creative and throw all kinds of stuff in the sauce. And I know that's a big No-No. So I freeze it instead :-) Here is a link that might be useful: NCHFP Canning Tomatoes and Tomato Products

The only kind of mayonnaise that is tolerable for warm weather is where the eggs in it have been pasteurized. Most jarred mayonnaise is pasteurized nowadays. You can home pasteurize eggs, if you want to make your own. Mayonnaise is also an excellent medium for breeding bacteria that have been introduced after the eggs have been treated, so if the potato salad is mixed with dirty (bad bacteria filled) hands, and left to sit in the sun, it's not any of the ingredients themselves that are the source of the taint, but the mayonnaise sure helps the bacteria to breed! Yoghurt is preserved milk. It can last for a very long time if kept cold and sealed, and be perfectly fine. With all of these things, it's a matter of circumstance and judgment. Children, elderly and people with compromised immune systems or delicate guts should err very far toward caution. Food you're feeding to guests should always be the best and freshest you have both for quality and for just in case. Like, I always open a new jar of mayonnaise when making chicken salad for a big group rather than risk exposing them to whatever might have been on my knife last week and transferred to my open jar. For home use, however, especially without little kids and elderly in the group, use a little sense, and use good practices with food handling. When there's a drip on the jar, do you wipe it off with your finger? If so, is your finger cleaner than a paper towel? Usually, it's going to be the towel, but there are scenarios when the finger might be cleaner. Either way, know that touching the working end of the bottle with anything is going to introduce bacteria...so is it the kind of thing that will fight foreign bacteria, or grow it? Is it going to linger in the fridge or get used up fast? Will you know who's going to find and eat it, or do you have random friends and all rooting around in your fridge? Is it worth letting the drip get the top all gummed up, not to wipe it? Being too clean can also be a problem. Your immune system needs things to attack, and was designed to survive mildly tainted foods. Dying of food poisoning used to be very common, but so was dying of anything. It's amazing what healthy people used to be able to get away with eating. I have a number of health issues, but I've never gotten food poisoning from something in a jar or bottle that had been in my fridge awhile without seeming off or moldy, nor has anyone in my family. I did get food poisoning once at a major league baseball game from a salad bought there that likely wasn't kept cold enough before sale.

I'm with azzalea. When in doubt, don't. Chances are you probably won't get sick and I'm sure others have done it and not gotten sick, but you still "could" get sick. What are the chances, I don't know. Probably not 1 in 2 or even 1 in 5, but maybe 1 in 10 or 1 in 30. I really don't know, but at what point is taking the risk worth saving the sauce? Would you want to eat sauce that was left out like that at a restaurant? If not, then why do it at home? I also have to tell you that I have not been trained in food safety and I could be totally wrong. I guess what I'm getting at is that you're going to get answers left and right from people that have opinions based on assumptions but I'm not sure who here REALLY knows. Just because they did it or they didn't get sick or they "think" the bacteria gets cooked out, or that the acid protects it enough doesn't mean it's a fact. I posted a link... but I have no idea who this Carol is that answered it. She could be wrong, she could be right. You could probably find sites that say just the opposite. Bottom line, it is a gamble: what your odds are is anyone's guess. I'd personally toss it. Here is a link that might be useful: Safety Issues