Canning: Pizza Sauce

Homemade Pizza Sauce and Homemade Mozzarella

I have several friends who work in the Backyard Farms, a greenhouse based in Madison, ME that produces fresh tomatoes year-round. Two of them gave me tomatoes, totaling 2&1/2 boxes. I used some fresh, and before they turned bad, I thought of canning them as pizza sauce (it used to be that, when I made pizza at home, I would buy a jar of pizza sauce, which we often found inferior).  We also bought shredded mozzarella and other toppings.

Since I have been making mozzarella cheese with fresh cow's milk, I thought I should also make our own pizza sauce. I picked a recipe that had rave reviews from food.com. It was the first time when we had our supper last night that we used it for homemade pizza.  It received high praises from my greatest critic (my husband), saying that it was even better than our favorite store-bought pizza (freshly baked pizza from Al's Pizza).  That is, after I added 1/4 tsp to the pint of pizza sauce after I had hubby taste it before spreading onto the pizza dough. He even reminded me that I should keep the recipe.

Almost all of the ingredients in the recipe can be grown or were grown in my garden (with lemon juice as my exception...unless I become successful in growing Meyer's lemon, at least; I also bought the celery seeds, but will try growing celery this year).  As for the sugar, I replaced it with honey, which came from my SIL who does beekeeping.

So, for purposes of "keeping the recipe," I am posting it here the way I made it (no photos of the early stages of making it).

Ingredients:

25-28 tomatoes
2 large onions, minced
4 garlic cloves, minced
3 T olive oil
2 T lemon juice
1 tsp pepper
1 T honey
2 T parsley
1 T oregano
1 T basil
1 tsp rosemary
1 tsp celery seeds
1 T salt
1/2 tsp summer savory

Instructions:

Cut the tomatoes in half and place in large roasting pans.  Add the onions and garlic cloves.  Drizzle the olive oil on top.  Roast at 425ºF for about 30 minutes or until the veggies are browned real good and garlic is fragrant.

Drain the tomato juice off.

Use a food mill to remove the seeds and skins. Mine is a Kitchen Aid fruit and vegetable strainer attachment.

Place in a crockpot large enough to contain the tomato sauce and add all the other ingredients. Cook on high uncovered until the desired consistency is achieved (took about the whole day for me). Stir occasionally. (Meanwhile, I was doing other chores).

Make it smoother by using either a stick blender (also called immersion blender) like I had, or transferring to a blender and blenderizing until smooth.

Heat up some more until you are sure you want the consistency. Prepare your lids and jars (I like using pints) by sterilizing them (I use a steam canner) for at least 10 minutes at 180ºF steam, then ladle the sauce into the jars, wipe the rips, place the lids and bands, then process in either a water bath canner or the steam canner for 25 minutes.

Almost like making smoothies using the stick blender

Ladling the pizza sauce onto the homemade pizza dough

The finished homemade pizza that got rave reviews from my family