Favorite Canned Tomato Recipes: Tomato Sauce with Onions Garlic and Herbs

This is another favorite, I made 4 pints last year and so far I've made probably 8 pints for this year. It's a great way to use tomatoes while they are abundant and the sauce is really handy throughout the year.

It's great for pizza. You can pull out a pint or half pint (depending on how many pizzas) and voila- you have sauce! and it is so much better than the store bought. It's great on oven roasted veggies (like eggplant) or to cook eggs in it.

I love that this does not require peeling tomatoes.  I use my vitamix blender to blitz the peels to
oblivion.

Ingredient/Cost notes: I did upick tomatoes this year for 50 cents a pound. That totally beats the "good" farmer's market price of $1.50 per pound (and slaughters the store price of $3 a pound).

Canning notes: sterilize at least 4 pint jars (cook in boiling water for 10 minutes to sterilize).  I like to heat up 5 pints and 2 half pints (my canner fits 7 jars) just in case.

Method:
Roughly cut several pounds (4-6 pounds) of tomatoes, enough they will blend in the blender.  Puree. Measure out how many cups of tomato you have. This recipe is for 12 cups of tomato puree (which I get with approx 6 pounds of tomatoes) but you can make smaller batches, just scale down the other ingredients.  Set aside.

Saute 12 oz diced onion in 1 TB olive oil until browned.  Add 2-3 minced cloves garlic, salt and stir.

Pour in tomato puree, stir. Optional add 2 branches rosemary.  Cook over high heat with lid off (to promote evaporation) until it reduces a bit: 20-35 minutes.  I do this while I'm prepping something else.

Add approx 1 tsp cracked black pepper to taste, 2-3 TB finely chopped basil and 2-3 TB finely chopped oregano.  Add approx 1- 2 tsp salt to taste.

Put 1 TB lemon juice into each sterilized hot pint jar. Following standard canning procedure, pour in the tomato sauce, leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Seal up and process in boiling water bath canner for 35 minutes.