Marinara Sauce

Several years ago, when we were still living in our very first home and had no money because it was going to our mortgage (cheap mortgage compared to our current rent), we made our first batch of marinara sauce and canned it to give as Christmas gifts.  Ever since then I have made it and taught my sisters how to make it.   They have taught the ladies in their church how to make it, and well you get the idea.  It was a gift that I even received requests for, and then we moved and I thought I didn't have any place to put jars of anything.  Truth is, I went into withdrawal over my jars of homemade goodness, and it was difficult to find mason jars.  I did find jars and decided since I forgot to buy crushed tomatoes today, it was time to use the #10 can of San Marzano tomatoes in my cupboard.  My recipe for sauce has evolved based on the ingredients available to me.  I now live in a very Italian neighborhood where my local Costco sells San Marzano tomatoes. For those of you who didn't know, those are the tomatoes that Italy is known for.  These tomatoes are grown in the special volcanic soil of Italy and have an inherent sweetness.  That means I can make sauce and it doesn't require any added sweetness.  I haven't ever added sweeteners, but I have heard of it being done.  My sauce recipe is seriously simple, but you can add to it if you want.  This is a pantry recipe, as in I used what I had on hand.  The ingredients are: #10 Can of whole San Marzano tomatoes, 12 cloves of peeled garlic, 3 tablespoons olive oil, coarse sea salt.

Look at those pretty jars, you need some on your counter.

 Ingredients for this recipe are: 3 tablespoons olive oil, #10 Can of San Marzano peeled whole tomatoes, 10 cloves of peeled garlic.

Coarse sea salt, I got at our local market (again I live in a very Greek/Italian neighborhood).

 

 I buy the big bag of already peeled garlic from Costco and freeze it.  The cloves look a little 

different when thawed but still taste good and they don't go bad.  Put 12 cloves of garlic in a 

preheated Stainless Steel (or non-stick) pot with olive oil.

 After sauteing the garlic until lightly browned add the tomatoes and cook on medium until it 

begins to boil.  Once it has started to boil, reduce heat to low and simmer for an hour.

 I used an immersion blender to crush the tomatoes and garlic, a potato masher would also work for this.  At this point, add salt to taste.  Ignore the next steps if you wish to freeze or refrigerate your sauce.

 I poured the sauce into 8 pint size jars, and screwed on the lids.

 Look how pretty they are all filled and lined up for pressure canning.

 I have an electric pressure cooker I used to can with.  I put the rack in the pot upside down and
poured an inch of water in the pot.  I was able to fit four pint size jars in the pot without them
touching each other or the pot. I set my pressure cooker to high and the timer to 15 minutes.  

 My sauce is complete, I can now rest knowing tomorrow morning when I won't be leaving my
home because of the snow storm, its okay, I have plenty of marinara sauce.  

Enjoy!