As others have said you can use the pressure canner if it allows 2 inches of boiling water above the jars. Be very careful, however. Two years ago I was using this method and had locked down the lid leaving the vent open as JodieMo suggested earlier. A small amount of pressure had built up and when I removed the lid, the superheated water exploded up out of the canner and burned me quite badly. I still have the scars to prove it. This was a very old canner (it has since been retired) and did not contain the pressure lock that modern Presto models have. However, I will never again lock a pressure cooker lid down for boiling water processing. Either remove the seal or search for a lid that fits the pot.

I wish i'd get e-mail notices Check your junk email box for them. Your mail program sends them there unless you tell it otherwise. Would this recipe be in any better shape if the tomato paste was added after canning, during preparation? Sure, much better. You'd still need a minimum of 20-25 min. in the PC (based on the Stewed Tomatoes recipe in BBB). Is the ph not so much a concern because of the lemon juice added? In part but also the pressure canning makes a big difference. No way this is safe for BWB caning.. But pH is still a concern because the ratio of tomatoes to onions/peppers is so low. Tomatoes are at least borderline acidic, the onions and peppers are very low acid and there is no way to know if the lemon juice is enough to off-set their pH. Bottom line it is a personal recipe so using it or trying to modify it for safety is all guesswork. As for testing and sources of approved recipes - tons of discussions here about all that. There have always been accepted and tested sources for canning and personal recipes have never been one of those sources. Ball books and NCHFP are the foundation sources that all reputable canning recipes are based on - all tested repeatedly. We have lists of additional books here too. The only thing hand-me-down and personal recipes have going for them is that no one has died from them yet - that we know of. For some folks that is enough. For most of us it isn't nearly enough. :) Think of it this way. The purpose of canning foods is safely preserving the basic foods while in season. It is NOT having ready-to-eat meals. You sauce recipe can easily and quickly be made fresh by canning plain tomatoes and tomato paste and having frozen or dried onions, peppers, and garlic on hand. But trying to mix all those things together and then add oil and then seal it in a vacuum jar, an anaerobic environment, without first insuring the proper density, pH, and processing time is an accident just waiting to happen. But the choice is always yours to make. Dave

No Pat, you still need to have the jars warm when doing a raw pack to avoid thermal shock. But just hot water from the tap is good enough (120 degrees). Ball says their jars can withstand up to 90 degrees difference. I just put them in BWB filled and heat the whole thing up (140 for raw pack, 180 for hot pack) and then dump the water out of each jar back into the canner as I take it out to fill. With PC you want to fill with the 3 qts or whatever manual calls for, but put some water in each jar so they don't float but you don't need to fill the jars, just dump that water in the sink as you take each jar (same temps) out to fill so you don't end up with too much water in the PC. Put the salt, sugar, dry stuff in the hot jars, then fill with beans, then vinegar or lemon juice if using (room temp shouldn't hurt since it will be going over the beans and not hitting glass directly) then boiling water. You can put the vinegar in after the water if you underfill a little. Then release bubbles, check HS, add water as necessary. Do 1 jar at a time, don't fill all the jars and then put them in the canner b/c the first ones will have cooled off and could break when they hit the hot water.

For home use and canning, USDA rules is not enforced. If you mean there are no canning police who will come and arrest you then yes, they are not enforced. However liability, not to mention responsibility, does attach to any home canned foods that are shared with others. fill the jar, tighten the lid, then place them upside down, ...how the heck bacteria is going to get into it ? It doesn't have to "get in". It is already in there. So is the air still trapped in the jar that allows the bacteria in the jar to continue to grow, reproduce, and produce toxins. The only foods where inversion sealing is still commonly practiced anywhere is with highly acidic foods - fruit jams and jellies, canned fruits, and brined pickles. Tomatoes do not quality as highly acidic foods since they are borderline pH at 4.5-4.8. If you cannot kill a bacterium by boiling, forget about canning and eating tomato sauce. There are many bacteria, including c.botulinum, that cannot be killed by boiling but that doesn't mean the food cannot be canned. Those bacteria are killed only by irradiation (which isn't possible at home) or by high pressure temps in excess of 240 degrees for a period of time determined by the density of the food in question. Alternatively they are packed in an highly acidic medium which prevents the bacteria from reproducing in the jar. Thus the requirement to add additional acid to tomatoes when canning them. None of this is new info. It dates from research begun back in the 1950's. And it is all discussed in great detail on the Harvest forum for those interested. But I would suggest some research into all the science behind the canning guidelines before sharing such mis-leading information with others. It does them a dis-service otherwise. Dave