Tomato sauce

I got a wild hare this week that I wanted to make tomato sauce.  I've never made tomato sauce.  I've never done any canning.  I've made jelly a few times, but not recently.

So, I stopped at the vegetable stand on the way home from work on Thursday.  They have about 20 varieties of tomatoes.  I know that plum tomatoes or Roma tomatoes are supposed to be good for sauce, but that was one variety they did NOT have.  So I asked the woman who owns the stand if the ones labeled "local - grown in Keezletown" would make good sauce.  They would, so then to decide how many to buy - she suggested that they sell 1/2 bushels for canning - hmm, that sounded like too many tomatoes.  So she had a box with a few pounds in it - ones with a couple of bruises, etc, that weren't pretty for using at the table - and suggested they would be good for sauce; the whole lot for $2.  Well, I figured I couldn't go wrong for $2, so they went home with me.  Since DH was working late, I put a pot on the stove and started peeling tomatoes.  I peeled them, cut out the bruised parts, squeezed out as much of the seeds as I could, then chopped and put them in a pot. 

After about 2 hours of simmering, everything was broken down and about the right consistency.  I used my immersion blender to smooth it out a little more, then packaged it up into 2 quart-size zip bags which I put in the freezer.

Today, I used my homemade tomato sauce to make spaghetti sauce.  Yum!  It tasted different than using canned tomato sauce - it's sweeter.  Next time I do this, I won't put any sugar into the spaghetti sauce.  So this week, I may take the woman at the farm stand up on her suggestion of 1/2 bushel.