Preserving the Harvest :: Marinara



There's something about the start of fall that makes me yearn for the coziness of gooey, cheesey baked pasta. A hearty lasagna with chunks of spicy sausage, stuffed shells with an earthy mix of ricotta and sauteed Swiss chard, or even a weeknight baked ravioli. I call this hibernation food. It's great, stick-to-your-ribs, warm you from the inside out food. Perfect after a day of raking leaves. This might also be why I gain 10 pounds every winter. What can I say, I'm a Wisconsin girl that loves her cheese and pasta. But I digress...

While it's easy to open a jar of your favorite storebought pasta sauce for these dishes, starting them off with homemade marinara makes them extra special. I don't know about you, but I don't have the time to stand at the stove making a big batch of sauce every time the yearn for pasta hits. Enter home-canned marinara.





 

As I mentioned before, I have been working on perfecting a cannable marinara recipe for a couple years now. While I also like to freeze marinara, I don't always remember to thaw it in time and there's something really special about seeing the pretty jars all lined up in the basement.

After making another big batch Sunday, I can confirm it's the tastiest marinara  that's come out of my kitchen in a long time. I hope you like it as much as we do.

A note on the tomatoes - feel free to use whatever kinds you have/prefer. I like plum/Roma tomatoes, but rarely get 12 pounds at a time, so I use a mix of whatever we harvest from the garden. Also, please refrain from adding onions or garlic to the sauce. Adding too much from the allium family brings the pH of the sauce to a questionable zone for safe canning practices. I like to saute a few cloves of garlic in olive oil, then add the sauce to the pan to simmer for a bit before serving.

Marinara

12 pounds tomatoes, peeled and roughly chopped

2 tablespoons kosher salt

2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

3 tablespoons brown sugar

1 tablespoon dried basil

1 tablespoon dried oregano

1 teaspoon black pepper

2 cups loosely packed fresh basil, rough chopped

1 tablespoon red chili flakes (optional)

6 tablespoons bottled lemon juice

Over medium-high heat, add tomatoes, salt, vinegar, sugar, and dried herbs to a large nonreactive pot. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer, stirring occasionally.

 

Continue to cook, breaking the tomatoes down with a wooden spoon, until the sauce is nice and thick. This can take 2 to 3 hours.

 

While sauce is simmering, sterilize canning jars in a large pot of boiling water. Set aside. Fill a large canning pot with water and bring to boil.

 

Once sauce has thickened, add fresh basil. Briefly blend sauce with immersion blender. Raise temperature to a boil. Meanwhile, add new canning lids to a pot of simmering water to prepare for canning.

 

Add 1 tablespoon of bottled lemon juice to each pint canning jar. Ladle hot sauce into canning jars, leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Wipe rims with a clean, damp cloth, then add lids and bands. Process in hot water bath for 20 minutes.

 

Remove jars from hot water bath and let cool.

Yield:  About 6 pints

Let the Canning Season Begin!

For the past few weeks, I haven't been able to stop thinking about canning. It sounds silly, I know. But spring has arrived in full force around these parts, and with the arrival of spring has come serious garden planning. Before a single seed gets planted, however, a full inventory of our larder is needed. How many jars of pickles do we still have? Plenty dill slices, but we have been out of bread and butter pickles for months already. The salsa is running low, but we still have three half-pint jars of tomato-rhubarb chutney out of the four I canned. (Honestly, barely a spoonful is missing from the opened jar in the fridge... not my favorite, it goes without saying.)

I have been poring over canning books, making lists of new recipes, and participating in several heated debates over just how many tomato plants we need this year. (For the record, four will barely keep us in salsa for the year. Ryan seems to think two is too many. I think I'll win this one.)

So when I went out to the garden plot to measure the other day and saw how huge my rhubarb had gotten, I was thrilled! I remembered a vanilla rhubarb jam Marisa posted about some time ago, and after a quick check to make sure I had all the ingredients, we were in business.

The end result was so much more than I had imagined. The vanilla softened the bite of the rhubarb, and the lemon juice added an unexpected brightness. I keep finding myself sneaking spoonfuls out of the jar, adding a big spoonful to Greek yogurt, or making a slice of sourdough toast slathered in this jam for dessert. I think this may be the best jam I've ever made. Yes, it's that good.

Vanilla Rhubarb Preserves (adapted from Food In Jars)
(makes 4 half-pint jars)

5 cups of sliced rhubarb (fresh or frozen)
2 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup water
1 T vanilla paste
2 T bottled lemon juice
1 packet liquid pectin

Sterilize canning jars in a large pot of boiling water. Set aside. Meanwhile, add new canning lids to a pot of simmering water to prepare for canning.

Add rhubarb and sugar to a large, non-reactive pot. Stir together and let macerate at room temperature for up to an hour.

Add water and bring to boil. Add vanilla and lemon juice, and reduce to a heavy simmer for about 15 minutes. Stir in the pouch of liquid pectin and let bubble for another 5 minutes, or until jam coats the back of a spoon.

Ladle into pint jars leaving 1/2 inch head space, wipe rims with a warm, damp cloth, and add lids and rings. Process in a hot water bath for 10 minutes. Be sure to refrigerate any jars that do not seal.