Tomato Sauce (a la Animal, Vegetable, Miracle)

This recipe was adapted from Animal Vegetable Miracle and the original can be found here. We like garlic a little more, and we have had a hard time growing onions, so we use dried onions. This is for late summer, early Fall when you have a ton of tomatoes, it can probably be reduced for less than 10 Quarts but 


10 QUARTS Tomato Puree (we skin and blend the tomatoes) we are shooting for 6 quarts reduced sauce so 50% paste tomatoes, 50% beefsteak work well, if you use all romas should increase all other ingredients by half and simmer half as long.

4 C Dried Onions
1 C Dried Basil
½ C Honey (or 3/4 C Brown Sugar)
4 T Dried Oregano
4T Garlic Powder (or more, to taste)
3 T Salt
2 T Lemon or Lime Zest
2 T Dried Thyme
2 T Dried Parsley
2 t Pepper
2 t Cinnamon
½ t Nutmeg

Put all ingredients into a large stock pot and simmer until you get the right consistency (2-4 hrs usually) stirring regularly (we set the timer for 15 min at the start and reduce to 10 min as the sauce thickens).

WITHOUT MEAT!!! Sanitize Quart jars and add 1/2 t citric acid (or 2 t lemon or lime juice, the citric acid does not impart a citrus flavor to the sauce which we already got with the zest, IMHO both juice and zest are too much.) to each jar (botulism is nasty!!!)

Ladle hot sauce into jars, process 35 min in water bath.


WITH MEAT!!!
You can add browned and seasoned ground meat at this point (we like Turkey) but that changes the processing. No additional acid is required. but they must be pressure canned.

Ladle hot sauce into jars, Pressure can 70 min at 15 lbs where we are @ 6000 feet for lower elevations you can use less pressure, IE @ <1000 feet you can use 10 lbs.

TO USE SAUCE:
For pasta, add 1/4 teaspoon baking soda while reheating, it will foam a little but this will counter act the acidity that most of us don't like in our sauce. We like it with some cheese stirred in (thank you Grandpa Paul!) or 8 oz cream cheese for "creamy tomato sauce". 

Use it straight out of the jar for Pizza.