The end is in sight!! The last several boxes of tomatoes were to be used for pizza sauce. By this point several of the tomatoes were starting to go bad. In the end I had about a box of tomatoes that I no longer felt good about using. They were added to the compost pile.
The remaining 80 or so pounds were processed and cooked down to make pizza sauce. This day actually lasted over two days. The first day was used to do all but the final cooking and canning of the tomatoes. Instead the sauce was put into a large pot on the stove and left overnight. The next morning I walked into the kitchen, added the spices and turned the stove on. Breakfast was made, school bus met and jars filled. I actually had to leave to go to a meeting at this point so I place a thick towel over the jars and put boiling water into the pressure canner. When I came back the jars were still warm and the pressure canner had been warmed up and was ready to get started. Not the ideal of situations, but life happens.
These 80 lbs of tomatoes made 25 pints of pizza sauce, enough for pizza every other week this year. If given the chance, I would love to make more of this. Yes, it takes just as long a making spaghetti sauce. The difference is that we really like this sauce much more than that from the store.
TIPS
- When you open a jar to use when making pizza, if you find the sauce needs to be thicker then pour it through a fine mesh sieve. This also works if you are using spaghetti sauce and want it thicker.
- You can use any spaghetti sauce for pizza sauce, just thicken it up a bit.
- Clean up the night before and set out what you may need for the morning. This makes the day start faster and allows you to utilize long cooking times while getting ready or doing other household chores.
Do you have a favorite pizza sauce you like to use?