Home made tomato pasta sauce

Tonight I'm making and bottling tomato sauce, using my Fowlers-Vacola preserving kit.

It has been a success I think. This is the first time I have used this recipe. 2 kilos of tomatoes and 1 kilo of apples made 4 jars of sauce. It is quite time consuming and very messy but I'm glad I did it.

I will make another, double, batch over the next few weeks.

First I chopped up the tomatoes, put them in a large saucepan with chopped onions, herbs and garlic.

 The recipe calls for a Fowlers-Vacola product called saucesetta. I tried the co-op where I buy my jars, lids and seals. No luck. I tried online cooking supply shops. No luck. I discovered some forums where people weree discussing what was in it - was it a thickening agent or spices? Not a lot of help

So I emailed Fowlers-Vacola. I got a very prompt and helpful reply. So here it is, the defintive answer.

"We deleted Saucesetta from our range approx 6 years ago, you may like to use a blend of cinnamon, garlic, cloves, allspice, salt, ground mustard seeds and nutmeg in equal qtys."

Then I added apple, sugar, salt and vinegar, brought it all to the boil, then down to simmer.

 I pureed the sauce but left it chunky. Here are the bottles with their rings, lids and clips in place.

 The bottles stay in the preserving kit for an hour, so I'll be up for a bit longer tonight.

In truth I have had the ingredients for almost a week but have been too busy to make the sauce. I came home from work tonight and almost talked myself out of making it. You know how it goes, I was tired, hungry.  I knew it would take a while. I am really glad I persevered though. I have a wonderful sense of accomplishment for a Monday night!

Speaking of accomplishments I am about to reach blog post number 100! So I think its about time I made some updates, announced my blog plans for 2012 AND hosted a give away.

So please stay tuned.