Mac Johnson

Sauteed over pork chops and chicken!

I had been getting tons of requests for my tomato sauce recipe after people had tried my version (not trying to brag, I really didn't think it was something most would like).  Trouble is, there wasn't a recipe that I followed and I used my own taste after years of trying to make my parent's tomato sauce better.  Eventually, the harassment got enough that I made this "guide" for my tomato sauce.  I'm always tweaking it.  This year I'm trying some sweeter cherry tomatoes to brighten it a little.  If you can use it, great.  We eat something with tomato sauce 1-2 times a week and I haven't bought a jar of sauce in years.  My kids no longer prefer the sweeter, higher sodium, refined sauces from the store which is the real win for me.

Homesteader’s Special Tomato Sauce


I started canning tomatoes as a child with my parents.  While I loved most everything coming out of our garden, the tomato sauce my parents made was thin, plain, and uninspired.  The sauce would often leave an orange-red puddle under the noodles.  This was nothing like the sauce from a grocery store or restaurant.  As I started canning on my own, I began tinkering with recipes.  I looked at Italian grandma’s recipes, preserving cookbooks, and culinary blogs; and I continued to experiment.

The first big breakthrough was that I was using the wrong tomatoes.  The Mortgage Lifter and Big Boy tomatoes my parents grew make great slicers (BLTs were my dad’s favorite supper once the tomatoes came in).  They are far too watery for a hearty sauce, however.  More on tomatoes later.  The second breakthrough was the art of the simmer.  Even watery tomatoes can make a great sauce, you just may be simmering the pasta for a few days to get it to thicken enough.  This is definitely a weekend project, as this sauce can require simmering for as much as 25 hours or more.  This is a Special Tomato Sauce after all. There are far quicker sauces on the internet.  This is a rich, robust sauce for lovers of rich robust sauces that can be used on pizza, pasta, cacciatore and pot roast.

To achieve the flavor of the sauce I make in my kitchen, it starts with the tomatoes you use.  For me it starts with planting.  I plant equal numbers of San Marzano and Purple Cherokee tomatoes.  San Marzano is a traditional paste style tomato used in sauce recipes.  This is THE Italian Grandmother tomato.  Roma tomatoes can work just as well and are often easier to find.  Purple Cherokee are a heritage tomato with a richer flavor, higher acidity, less sweetness, and a deeper color.  I think most heritage tomatoes will work just as well but the flavor profile and color may change which could be good for you or your family.  I’ve stuck with these two varieties for my sauce because of how well they produce in my garden and the first Killer sauce I made used these two types.  Feel free to experiment and find ones that work for you and your garden.  I’m trying Ukrainian Heritage Tomatoes this year in a small batch.

Ingredients

Peeled Tomatoes (Fill a large stock pot; I don’t seed) 22 qt stock pot filled to 2-3” from top last batch was 20% heritage and the rest San Marzano.  I freeze as I go every few days by peeling and coring the tops, then placing in a freezer bag.  I thaw them when I have enough tomatoes to make a large batch.

Onion, carrot, leek, garlic (Or whatever might be growing in your garden) 2 large onion, four carrots, and six medium heads of garlic (garlic roasted in the oven wrapped in aluminum foil with olive oil, then squeezed into the sauce)

Basil (Fresh)4 oz. after cleaning and roughly chopping

Herbs (Thyme, Sage is what I use primarily fresh or dried) about the same as the basil when added together.  I used fresh this time around.  Oregano is also a favorite herb along with savory.  I usually keep oregano out of my primary sauce just because oregano can be polarizing.  I’ll still add it when I cook, though.

Red Wine (I use a Bota Box blend) 1 cup, half cup for cooking the veggies in and the rest for flavor.

Apple Cider Vinegar 1/4 cup, but this varies quite a bit by taste.  I’ve added as much as 2 cups and as little as a few splashes.

Sugar (Optional; I use Maple Syrup, Brown or Turbinado Sugar and only if my family thinks it needs sweetening which it usually doesn’t for us) None this last batch or my earlier batch.  Start with ¼ cup if it needs it.

Tools

Large Stock Pot with lid

Immersion Blender

Instructions

Fill a large stock pot with your peeled tomatoes.  Give them a rough mash with a long handled wooden spoon to release the fluid inside.  Add a few heavy pinches of salt.
Bring the tomatoes to a low boil, then reduce and simmer.  This will be a loooong process.  Be sure you are regularly stirring to avoid burning the sauce.  The sauce will get very heavy at the bottom while more watery on the top.  Overnight I will put the lid on askew and put the pot on my lowest burner to slow the evaporation but keep the sauce warm to avoid burning the bottom.  My longest simmering time was 25 hours.  If your tomatoes have more liquid, it will take even longer.  It reduces in volume slower and slower the longer you simmer
While you’re simmering the tomatoes, start a large sautee pan with some butter or your preferred frying oil and the diced vegetables.  Onion, carrot, leek, and a few heads of garlic I roast on the grill with olive oil go in at this point.  Add salt and pepper.
Sautee vegetables for about 15 minutes or until they are starting to get blackened on the edges.
Add a cup of wine to the veggies bringing it to a boil before reducing and allowing to simmer.  Add some dried herbs to the pan to your taste.  Once the wine is reduced, dump the vegetables into the stockpot.
Now, it’s time to take a break.  I’ll take all my trimmings at this point and make it into a stock.  You’ll want to make sure you don’t forget about your sauce, but it does not need constant attention.  Once the sauce is reduced by about a third, start tasting the sauce.
Now you should start adjusting the sauce to your preferences.  First add the apple cider vinegar, about a half cup to start.  Some will add lemon juice to brighten the sauce and add acidity instead of vinegar.  Add a handful of fresh chopped basil.  
After it cooks for another 20 minutes, give it another taste and adjust again.  Basil for herbaceousness, wine for body, apple cider vinegar/lemon juice for acidity.  Don’t add any sweetener, yet.  The tomatoes are still reducing and concentrating their flavor.  Continue this process of cooking and adjusting the flavor to your preference.
Once the flavor is where you would like it, aside from the sweetness, hit the sauce with your immersion blender.  If you don’t have an immersion blender, you can use a food processor or blender in batches.  Don’t overblend.  You’re looking to break up the tomato flesh and incorporate some of the vegetables, but overblending will make the sauce lose body and the chunkiness of your vegetables.
Now begin looking at the consistency.  You can get an idea for how thick it is by dipping the spoon in vertically and lifting it out.  If the water is still running off quickly, it needs more simmering.  This is where I continue simmering until I get a consistency similar to a store-bought jar.  
Now add the sugar to your taste.  You can make some noodles and throw a little sauce on them to let the family try some.  The sauce is done and ready for storage.

Storage

Freezing: Zippered freezer bags or vacuum sealing both work.  Portion out your bags and lay flat in the freezer until frozen to make them easier to store and take up less space.
Water Bath Canning: Water bath canning works well for this recipe.  Citric acid (which doesn’t alter the flavor a lot) is a good additive to make sure your pH is low enough for water bath canning.  If you have the ability to measure pH, you’ll want a value of 4.6 or lower to water bath can safely.
Pressure Canning: I usually pressure can my tomato sauce.  This way, I don’t have to worry about pH and I know my sauce will keep for at least a year.  This comes with some drawbacks.  Large pressure canners aren’t cheap and processing takes longer because you need to wait for the canner pressure to let up before you can open the canner and put the next batch in.

Notes

Store-bought spaghetti sauce usually comes in 24 oz. jars.  A pint is 16 oz. and a quart is 32 oz.  The sauce can go a long way, so a pint might be plenty for a household of 2-3.  I can some of both for sharing and use the smaller jars for pizza, sides and grinders.  Otherwise, I use quarts primarily for my family of four.  You can store unused sauce in the fridge for later, like a grilled sandwich condiment or as marinara dip for crostinis.

When it comes to my tomato sauce, I usually leave it all in.  Though, I have relatives who really don't like this and I supply quite a few people with seed and skin free sauce batches as well as make some tomato juice and catsup (my recipe is definitely a catsup and not ketchup).  So I end up with a lot of seeds and skins.  My favorite use of them, especially the skins, is to dehydrate all of them (solar dehydrator is helpful) and then I grind it into a powder.  This powder I keep in a spice shaker and I use it to add a little color/fiber/thickener in different dishes similar to how someone might use paprika.  The rest gets mixed in with my "edible garden scraps" who all get a similar treatment and ground finely in a spice grinder or food processor with dried onion, mushroom, carrot, potato, lovage, or other similar garden vegetables all included.  Careful not to overpower the blend with one flavor (lovage can take over).  This powder is my go-to thickener for gravies, soups, even some dips and dressings.  It can also add flavor depth in some cooking and I'll add it to meatballs, bread dough, meatloaf, breading, tomato sauce and alfredo, and more.  I feel good about the fact that I'm incorporating the high nutrient/fiber/antioxidant trimmings and bits back into our diet in different ways and it has become pretty useful without changing what we eat in any meaningful way.

I'm going to try both of these approaches as well as sod transplanting.  If I remember, next spring/summer I can tell you which worked best

I've had pretty low success with getting white clover started in locations.  Once established, it's great but it always seems to be overtaken before it really develops roots.  I've only tried by direct sowing seeds so far.  I was thinking of digging up some of the stuff growing wild around my property and starting small patches that way.  Has anyone tried this approach?  Would I cut it similar to sod for best effect?  If planted in virgin dirt, how big of clover chunks should I plant with the hope of it overtaking the surrounding barren ground?  Power to the fixers

Crosshatched some sticks to help hold the dirt until there are roots to do the work. Finished adding dirt. Repurposed some blocks to make a few step paths for access to this bigger mound. Finally, I'm starting to add some plants. Got these honeyberry on clearance from a local place.

I'm probably going to cover most of it with old blankets too hold the weeds down until this fall when I can get the rest of the plants in.

Ended up 5 foot tall and 21 foot diameter. It'll probably settle some with the rain.

My trees support a large amount of Dryad's Saddle and Chicken of the Woods.  I make the Dryad's saddle into a jerky and use chicken of the woods to replace some of the chicken in our diet.  Makes great nuggets, alfredo, and grilled (mushroom) chicken with practice.

Updates!

Ran my ideas through several iterations of AI and got this.  Yep, looks like AI still has tons of problems like being able to count (no matter what I asked, it couldn't give me just 6 satellite mounds).  Someone at work had me try it out.

Put the logs (cottonwood, willow, ash, soft maple) together, inoculated with Shiitake mushrooms (Fingers crossed they take).  Started digging my future pond and putting the dirt on the mound.  More will be added after I fill in the voids.

Syd Smith wrote:
-The garden will be installed in what is now pastureland. It's pretty compacted. I plan to condition the soil with cover cropping and mulching for up to 2 years before installing the garden, but some modest mounds could also help build up a deeper soil bank that drains well.
-The ground is pretty flat (not great for swales), but it does pond in some areas, suggesting poor drainage.

Just by creating some small mounds you'll help some of your plants in these areas of poor drainage.  Just giving a little slope can provide the necessary movement of water to prevent rot and root smothering.  I live on the plains, and any area that has water pool likely has poor draining clay or something else underneath.  The capillary action of the mound will also draw some water up in times of drought.

I'd think about adding something organic to the small mounds.  Not a full hugel, but maybe leaf litter or sticks mixed in to be the water sponge that will soak up excess water and then release it slowly.  Personally, I wouldn't bring the dirt if you have somewhere you can dig and it is fairly fertile.  You'll be providing somewhere for the water to go if you dig in the same area.