Canning tomato sauce without peeling???

Anyone have a sauce recipe for roma that you leave skin and seeds intact? My friend gave me arecipe that you leave the skin and seeds and just put in the blender. I am leary to try it without hearing from others first.

TIA!

Perhaps it makes a difference how good your blender is. Mine is not that great and would never pulverize all the seeds. What I probably would do is put the sauce through a strainer after the blender to get any seeds or pieces of skin out. That would still be easier than scalding and peeling them all, at least I think it would.

GK

Peeling tomatoes is super easy. It took far too long for me to learn to put the tomatoes in the boiling water for 10-15 seconds until the skin on one tomato splits, retrieve them and leave them in the colander. If you wait a long while and cut up the rest of the recipe you will be much less likely to scald your fingers. Green tomatoes do not peel well. Happy cooking.

Patty from Yorktown

I hate peeling tomatoes. I would be ok if it was only 5 or 10 but I use 1/2 a bushel when I get around to canning. I tried the recipe on this board for roasting tomatoes. I tweaked it a little but it was so easy to cut, bake, blend and can. And the taste is amazing!


I laid down a bed of thyme, oregano, and basil on the bottom. Followed by a whole bunch of garlic slightly chopped then cut up tomatoes. (either halved or quartered depending on size) Drizzle with olive oil and bake at 375 for 40 minutes then 400 for 20 min. Allow to cool and blend all. Add a lemon juice. Put in clean jars and into a water bath for 20 min.

Well I spent the better part of the day blanching, peeling and seeding the tomatoes. And then I saw soccermoms post. Definately will do that with the next batch. Thanks! I do the exact same thing to make sundried tomatoes that are heavenly! Just a lower temp for a lot longer.

milaneyjane... what kind of mixer do you have? i just purchased a kitchenaid attachment and my life is complete!

It won't hurt a thing if you don't peel them.

It's for aesthetic reasons-- the skins don't break down in cooking, and some people don't like the look of them, and little kids tend to have a hissy fit.

If you don't care, it won't affect the quality of your goodies at all.

So, this is to make a tomato sauce. Can this be used to make a spaghetti sauce that is slightly thicker? I'm pretty handy with canning now and quite a good cook, but I back in the day I had a disaster with making homemade spaghetti sauce and refused to try again... but... I'd like to try again this year.

For comparison in size what I'm use to using at home, the traditional ragu normal sized jar, because it has a tomato flavor without much to it, so I can add my own special mix of ground herbs and spices to make it my own.

as long as it stays on the acidic side of things and doesn't have meat, yep...adding onions and peppers to make it spaghetti sauce is no biggie. I think the Blue Bell site and/or book have directions for spaghetti sauce.

LaFee wrote:as long as it stays on the acidic side of things and doesn't have meat, yep...adding onions and peppers to make it spaghetti sauce is no biggie. I think the Blue Bell site and/or book have directions for spaghetti sauce.

I disagree with you on this one, LaFee. Adding onions and peppers without following a tested recipe is a big no-no IMO. Onions and peppers are low acid and will lower the acidic content of the sauce.

The problem is, there is no way for a home cook to tell when the acidic level has gone too low. Tomatoes are a problem anyway because the amount of acid in them varies so much. They now recommend adding acid to them when canning, to be on the safe side.

Will adding onions and peppers on your own be a problem? Probably not. Can it be a problem? Yes, it can. To be safe you should follow a tested recipe from a modern canning book, as LaFee suggested. Their kitchens have the equipment to test the final result, and they know what proportion of low-acid veggies can be safely added.

I like to chop and freeze my peppers, then pull them out and saute as needed, there is no reason you could not can your tomatoes per the advice above, and when you want spaghetti sauce, saute your peppers, onions and garlic (if more is needed) and add them to the mix in the pan when preparing for dinner.

I did have 2 tomatoes last year that were out of this world for sauce. First one was the small yellow pear, to small to skin IMO, so I did not. I just blanched it, tossed it in my blender and pureed it, skin seeds and all, and hubby loved it. I had to get over the yellow sauce on my pasta, but it tasted good. The Yellow Pear is actually a cherry type tomato, but worked great in my experiment. The other was probably an Amish Paste (or Rio Grand Roma, not sure, some plants lost their names 2 years ago in the garden, and this one popped up as a volunteer in the strawberry patch). I did skin this one, but that's it. It is a very meaty tomato, and has few seeds, so I blanched it, skinned it, and again pureed it. I prefer "petite" diced, but hubby wanted pureed, so this time he got what he wanted, and honestly at the time I did not have the desire to chop that many.

Another tip, you can rinse, dry, bag, and freeze tomatoes, and pull them out later for canning. I learned this 14 years ago, living in a mobile home atop of a hill, with no shade and a window unit for air conditioning. It was too hot to can, and we did not have the time or finances for an outdoor kitchen (my dream), so an older lady asked me why I wasn't freezing them and canning them in the fall or winter, when I could kill 2 birds with one stone by canning & heating the house at the same time. This also works out great for slow times, when you are not getting loads of tomatoes, you can freeze as you go, and can when you get enough to justify firing up the waterbath. Last year was my first year to have a pressure cooker for canning, but did not get the chance to use it, so I've been saving most of my food by freezing, water bath method, or drying-like my cowpeas. I prefer canning and drying, living in the country gets scary in the winter, when the power goes out and you have a deep freezer full of garden food, and it's not cold enough to pull everything out and put it in coolers on the porch. We've lost produce that way, so I'm drying most of our peas now, just add extra seasoning, and bacon bits, and if hubby doesn't see me put them in the pan dry to cook, he does not know. He says he can tell, but he eats them all the time and doesn't notice!!!

Thanks for the info everyone. The roasting method sounds especially intriguing to me.

I just received my San Marzano tomato seeds in the mail!

LOL it's still hard to imagine a harvest when we've got snow on the ground and expecting freezing rain tonight.

Kim

extremesoccermom wrote:I hate peeling tomatoes. I would be ok if it was only 5 or 10 but I use 1/2 a bushel when I get around to canning. I tried the recipe on this board for roasting tomatoes. I tweaked it a little but it was so easy to cut, bake, blend and can. And the taste is amazing!

I laid down a bed of thyme, oregano, and basil on the bottom. Followed by a whole bunch of garlic slightly chopped then cut up tomatoes. (either halved or quartered depending on size) Drizzle with olive oil and bake at 375 for 40 minutes then 400 for 20 min. Allow to cool and blend all. Add a lemon juice. Put in clean jars and into a water bath for 20 min.

I was just rereading this thread, which contains great information, but I was wondering if the oiling of the tomatoes for roasting would be a problem? I think I read that you aren't supposed to put oil in canned goods, although I can't remember where I read it.

I've got to get myself a Ball Canning Set.
Sounds good.

I did find a recipe on ball's canning website that was pretty much exactly what I was looking for. And the bonus is, that it's only for 3/16oz pint jars. I bought this canning set last year -+- Ball® Canning Discovery™ Kit -+- as my intro into canning. I made the salsa that was in the little booklet, did NOT like it. It tasted more like vinegar than salsa. But this -+- Italian Style Tomato Sauce -+- is the recipe and it's great because it is so small so trying it wont be hard. I'll have to try the recipe here too, I have what I'm use to set in my mind but need to open up what to try. It might be better than what I think I want.

extremesoccermom wrote:I hate peeling tomatoes. I would be ok if it was only 5 or 10 but I use 1/2 a bushel when I get around to canning. I tried the recipe on this board for roasting tomatoes. I tweaked it a little but it was so easy to cut, bake, blend and can. And the taste is amazing!

I laid down a bed of thyme, oregano, and basil on the bottom. Followed by a whole bunch of garlic slightly chopped then cut up tomatoes. (either halved or quartered depending on size) Drizzle with olive oil and bake at 375 for 40 minutes then 400 for 20 min. Allow to cool and blend all. Add a lemon juice. Put in clean jars and into a water bath for 20 min.

miinva wrote:I was just rereading this thread, which contains great information, but I was wondering if the oiling of the tomatoes for roasting would be a problem? I think I read that you aren't supposed to put oil in canned goods, although I can't remember where I read it.

You may be thinking of preserving in oil, which is a whole other animal and not recommended by the USDA.You may add oil to tomato sauces and such, as long as you follow the recipe and retain the acid at a recommended level in the product.

I have heard from several people who can their salsa, NOT to put the cilantro in before canning it, save it for adding fresh when serving. I have not tried making more than what was needed for eating right then and there, so I don't know if there is a difference, but I've heard there is.

I hate seeds in my sauce but don't care if skins are on or off, but I am also about as lazy as you can get, so I use 2 options for canning my tomato sauce:

1. A few years ago I found a food mill on ebay for $50 which was a MIRACLE worker for saucing my tomatoes before cooking them down and canning - fast and oh, so easy. It got lots of use from 4 different people that year as well!

2. Last year when my food mill was making the rounds with friends, my tomatoes were ready to sauce. SO, I cut the stem end off, squeezed out as many seeds as possible and tossed them in the food processor with skins on, before cooking down and canning. I grew a paste tomato last year, Russian Purple, that was just amazing for this. Its texture was not firm at all, but it was incredibly meaty and very few seeds which just POPPED out with a slight squeeze. Simple squeeze, toss, whirl, cook, can!

Goosegirl

My mom's friend comes from a farm family. She is an avid gardener, producing enough veggies to feed us, her family, and her grown childrens families.

She makes her own tomato sauce and I got to watch it last year. She takes a lot of different veggies from the garden, mostly tomatoes but also green peppers, carrots, onions, zucchinis, anything ready and over producing, sticks it all in a food processor, little by little, then fills it into a very large stock pan, 20-30 gallon it's monstrous, adds seasonings, and then slow cooks it all day long and reduces it. I don't believe it's suitable for canning because you have to have precise ph balance and all but she sticks it in old plastic containers and freezes it. She has enough to use it year round. She showed me how to make it last year, there is no exact recipe they just go through the garden and make it a couple times throughout the summer. It's absolutely the best I've ever had, great for Italian type dishes.

I'm so wanting to make tomato sauce this year!!

Extremesoccermom - Can you share your recipe? I want to make sure I have the acid level correct to can it safely.

I have another question for everyone - I'm extremely allergic to onions and garlic. The Italian Style Tomato Sauce that kimbertangleknot posted has my name all over it, but my question is -

Can I substitute zucchini for the onions? I figure it has about the same water content as the onions.

What do y'all think? TIA!

Betty

That would most likely (don't quote me) be the same acidity as veggie stew/soup. Call your local county extension office if you are unsure. Freezing is great, but life in the country often leaves us with out power for a weekend during the summer, freak summer storm, drunk driver hits a pole, etc., so I'm trying to turn to canning and dehydrating.

Without peeling tomatoes howz looking tomatoes sauce?? I know about canning sauce. I will try it tomorrow.

You have to have precise pH to water-bath can; pressure canning works fine if you can't be precise about pH.

But really, "precise" pH just means adding some citric acid or ascorbic acid or vinegar to each batch, and maybe some sugar to counteract the acidity.

Opalkas have almost no seeds and thus don't have to be seeded, which saves a lot of aggravation IMO. Just peeling is minimal work compared to seeding.