As a certified home canning instructor, the first rule of home canning is NOT to make up your own recipes for canning; and the second rule is to use only tested recipes to help insure the safest food possible. There are also rules about altering amounts of food in a recipe, which can also change the pH. You won't know the proper canning times required to prevent bacteria growth, nor do you know the pH of your recipe. I would freeze the enchilada sauce in user-friendly amounts and preserve it that way. Since you are new to home canning, have you found the National Center for Home Food Preservation web site yet? They cover a wide spectrum of methods for food preservation, including canning, and all their recipes are tested for food safety after they were canned and a period of time while in storage when bacteria present have a chance to become a toxin. I included the link below for NCHFP. They have a self-study home canning coarse you might enjoy taking to bring your canning skills up-to-date. -Grainlady Here is a link that might be useful: National Center for Home Food Preservation

Here is my recipe for Yucatecan style Chicken chili - it is very similar to Cochinita Pobil, but with chicken instead of pork: Chicken Chili 6 chicken thighs or 1 chicken 2 limes, sliced rinds of 2 lemons, sliced 2 oranges, sliced (preferably green, but optional) 1 carrot, chopped 2 bay leaves 6 cups water 2 onions, cut in halves and divided 8 cloves garlic 3 dried Ancho chilies 2 dried Pasilla chilies 4 dried Guajillo chilies 1-2 dried Cayenne Chilies (optional) 2 tbsp oregano (divided) 1/3 cup flour 2 tbsp tomato paste 2 tbsp Achiote paste 1-1/2 tbsp vegetable soup base 1-1/2 tbsp chicken or turkey soup base cilantro, for garnish Wash the chicken and leave whole or cut into pieces. Place the lemon, lime, and orange slices in stockpot and add the chicken, carrot, bay leaves, and water. Add one onion and the garlic cloves. Slit open all the chilies and remove all seeds, and then add those to the pot, and bring to a boil on high heat. Put 1 tablespoon of oregano in a tea ball or bouquet garni and add to the pot. Reduce the heat to simmer and allow to cook covered for 40 minutes, or one hour if using a whole chicken. After one hour, turn off heat and allow the pot to stand covered for about 20-30 minutes more while the chicken continues to cook. Retrieve all the chilies and place in a small bowl with about 1/2 cup of cooking liquid. If possible, remove some of the peeling; otherwise purée them using a food processor or hand blender on low speed. Strain the purée through a food mill to remove the skin, and reserve the strained purée. Strain off the liquid from the stock pot and reserve. When the chicken is cool enough (you can refrigerate it at this point), remove all the meat and reserve. Save the bones and discard the bay leaves. Return everything else to the stock and boil for another hour with a 1/2 onion. Strain the stock and allow it to cool for a while. Then, using a fat separator, divide the stock from the fat. Reserve the stock, which should be about 4 cups or slightly more. Mince the remaining 1/2 onion. Add 1/3 cup of the skimmed fat to a large sauce pan over high heat. When the fat is hot, add the 1/2 cup flour and make a roux that is light brown or tan. Add the onion and cook about 1-2 minutes more, and then add 2 cups of reserved stock that has been defatted. Stir to combine, and add the tomato paste, one tablespoon of oregano, Achiote paste, and soup bases. Check for salt flavor and add more soup base if necessary. Cook for about 5 minutes, or until onions have cooked, and then purée with a stick blender (or food processor and return to saucepan). Chop the reserved chicken meat and add to the saucepan with 1/4 cup of chili paste that you have reserved (or about half of it). Stir to combine, and serve with tortillas or rice. *Note: You will have approximately 2 cups of stock and 1/4 cup of chili paste left over. This can be used to make a sauce for enchiladas or tamales. Here is my enchilada recipe, but I have not updated it for quite a while: Yucatecan Style Chicken Enchiladas 1 pound cooked (preferably poached) chicken or turkey meat, chopped 2 tbsp chicken fat (or combination of chicken fat, butter, olive oil) 1/4 cup flour 1/2 onion, finely chopped 2-3 Serrano peppers, minced (some seeds removed) 1 can Ro-Tel tomatoes 2 tbsp cumin 2 tbsp chili powder 2 tsp dried oregano 1 tsp vegetable soup base 1 tsp chicken soup base 2 tbsp achiote paste (ground annatto seeds) 1 cup chicken stock, as needed 14 corn tortillas If you have poached your chicken meat, you will have a nice broth to use for thinning the sauce later, and you will probably have chicken fat that you can use for the roux. I poach the chicken the day before and save the broth separately and extract the fat from the top of the broth. Chop the meat and set aside. If you have bones, you can add them to the broth and simmer for an hour or so. Melt the fat (or butter and oil) in a large saucepan, and add the flour to make a roux. When the roux is a pale brown, add the minced onion and cook a bit more so that the onion will become soft and the roux turns a light brown. Then add the peppers and stir to combine. Add the canned tomatoes, including all the liquid, and blend. Add the cumin, chili powder, oregano, soup bases (in place of salt), and achiote paste. Stir until blended. Reduce the heat and add sufficient chicken stock or water to make a thick sauce. Using a stick blender, purée until fairly smooth, or at least until tomato pieces are fully incorporated – you may have some onion pieces that do not get puréed, but this is okay. Remove about 1/3 of the sauce to reserve and add the chopped chicken or turkey meat to the rest of the sauce. Spoon about 2-3 tbsp of the reserved sauce into a 6”x10” (or similar size) baking dish, and spread fairly evenly, along the bottom and sides. Heat the tortillas on a covered plate in the microwave, 30 seconds at a time, turning them and restacking them so that the center ones are top and bottom. Once they are soft, spoon a bit of chicken filling into a single tortilla, roll it into shape, and place it in the baking dish. You can stack them tightly or else make two loose layers. If you make two layers, put a bit of reserved sauce in between the layers. At the end, add all remaining sauce to the top and spread evenly. Add grated cheese, if desired. Cover the pan with foil and bake at 360° for 20 minutes, or until they are hot. I am not Norwegian, but I do have Swedish ancestry from my Prussian ancestors who colonized Prussia from Sweden. Lars is also fairly common in Germany, and my ancestors considered themselves German. Lars

Don't travel to the southwest to get seeds, just go to www.nativeseeds.com and you'll get the best available. 4" should be fine for stuffing, like with some cheese. Yum. Or you could dry & grind and make sauce. Sautéed and in tacos isn't a bad idea.

The difference in the measurements it would cause. 1 cup of diced tomatoes wouldn't be equal to 1 cup of whole or halved. The cup of diced would be more tomatoes and have much less liquid in it. Just open your jars of tomatoes, drain off the liquid, chop them up, drain again to remove the liquid chopping causes, and then measure them for the recipe. Plus when blended/pureed you'd get a smoother texture and less watery consistency from the already-chopped/diced ones. Dave