Canning: Oven roasted tomato sauce.

I came across this method of making tomato sauce last year.  After I'd put up tomato sauce.  I thought the idea had merit, so I decide to give it a try the next time I had an abundance of tomatoes.

And voila - an abundance of tomatoes.

I already have plenty of diced tomatoes and my homemade version of Rotel put up, so...it was time to give it a try.

Everybody in for a quick rinse.  I even threw in extra cherry tomatoes.  I'm convinced that you have to have more than 9 people eating regularly at your house before you'd need to plant more than one cherry tomato plant.

I cut out any bad spots and then I quartered most of the tomatoes.  Really big ones were cut into sizes similar to quartered Romas, and I cut the cherry toms in half, just so they'd release their juice.

Place them in baking dishes.  I could have used my large roasting pan instead of all my baking dishes, but I couldn't reach where Kay (who is taller than me) had put it in the cabinet (the girls have been at mom's this week), and I couldn't find the step stool.  (Nor did I want to wade through the closet I believe it might be in - it was easier to wash all the dishes.)

These will bake at 350 degrees for about 1 1/2 hours, or until everything is soft.

Then dump them into a strainer.  You don't need to stir them as they cook, and the less they are disturbed in general, the more pulp stays with the tomatoes, while the juice is drawn out.  You can strain and save the juice if you like.

I've seen a lot of these recipes that just tell you to blend the tomatoes after they are drained, peels, seeds and all, but I don't really want little pieces of peel and seeds in my sauce.  Plus I didn't bother to cut out the vine ends of the tomatoes (except for the really big ones) because I knew I'd run them through my food mill.

I ran the skins through several times to ensure that I got as much of the pulp as possible off of them.

And that was it.  Enough of the juice had drained out, so the sauce was the proper consistency as soon as I had finished running the skins through and scraping everything off the barrel.  I just gave it all a good stir and then put it in a pot to keep warm while I prepared the canner and jars.  I could have done the jars and canner while it was in the oven, but I was busy with other things.  Plus I didn't really know how well it would work.

Put it in jars with lemon juice - 1Tbls to each pint and 2Tbls to each quart jar, leave 1/2" headspace, wipe rims, adjust lids and rings, and process in a water bath canner for 35 min/pt, and 40 min/qt. once the water has reached a full boil.

I've read some comments that said their sauce was a little tart, but that may be due to whatever tomato they were using.  My sauce was a bit on the sweet side, but I threw every extra tomato I had in there, which included a couple of sweeter varieties.

All in all, I liked this method of making tomato sauce.  I really loved not having to keep watch over a bubbling pot of tomato sauce for several hours while it cooks down.  I just need to make sure the large roaster is where I can get to it, or that I only make it when I have Kay here so she can get it down for me. :)

I've linked this post with the Carnival of Home Preserving, 

and Laura was kind enough feature my last post on her link this week.  Run over and check out what everyone has been up to.

I've also linked this post with the Homestead Barn Hop. 

 There are always lots of good posts there.