My mother always canned her own seasoned tomato sauce. While most kids came home from school to the smell of cookies from the oven, I came home to the smell of sauce simmering!

I don’t tend to cook with measurements, but I can tell you how we do it. I puree 4-5 blender fulls of tomatoes with their skins on. Used to hot water bath them to remove skins, but they help thicken the sauce and we have never noticed them otherwise. Saved a little time and labor. With the tomatoes I also puree 2-3 large onions, 5-6 cloves of garlic, 2-3 green peppers, and 1-2 hot peppers of your choice. I cook it down for several hours to make it good and thick before putting them in jars. We use a couple of camp stoves outside to keep the cooking heat out of the house. Just make sure you have a lid for the sauce!

This sauce is so flavorful we use it as a base for just about any tomato based soup or sauce. It’s great with Spaghetti an we add diced onions, garlic, and a pkg. of Spaghetti seasoning for added punch (we’re quite good chefs and have made plenty of “scratch” seasonings, but for some reason the cheap store-brand ones do it for us). We actually won a neighborhood cook-off with this recipe and guests often beg for a bottle of sauce to try and duplicate the results.

I hope that helps you….even if it inspires new ideas of your own! Sometimes those are the very best ideas of all!!