Homemade Red Sauce

Okay, I stumbled on a yummy sauce this week, by accident.  I had to pull lots of tomatoes before birds would get the rest of them so some were not fully ripe yet.  I blanched, peeled and cored, and pureed them as if for tomato sauce, but then I thought I'd try something new.  I have already canned more than 40 quarts of tomato sauce this season and 19 jars of salsa, so I was in the mood for something new.  Can you say enchiladas?  Yippee!  Me too. Love em.

I love cheese enchiladas in red sauce and I had the general idea of what is in red sauce: tomatoes, cilantro, cumin, crushed red pepper, jalapeno, garlic, onion, sweet peppers, lime juice, vinegar, salt, pepper, and olive oil so I set out to refine my own recipe by adding these elements a little at a time, until I liked the flavor.  That's what I did.

RECIPE

I started with a sink full of tomatoes, mostly ripe, some yellow heirlooms snuck in too. 

I Prepared them as stated above and added the following:

4 cups onion finely chopped

12 cloves garlic finely chopped

2 red sweet peppers finely chopped

5 stalks celery finely chopped

1 bunch fresh cilantro finely chopped

3 T dried crushed red pepper

2 jalapeno finely chopped 

(optional- this may make it too hot for you so it's okay to omit jalapenos)

1/2 cup fresh lime juice

1/2 cup balsamic vinegar

1/2 cup olive oil

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 to 1/2 cup cumin 

(CUMIN is the VIP for flavor, but can overwhelm some palates, so use sparingly, a tablespoon at a time)

Then, simply cook this down to your preferred consistency, jar them up into properly prepared canning jars with properly prepared lids and rings, and can them in a water bath.  I used my pressure canner as a water bath canner and canned quarts for 35 minutes after heavy boiling began.

My husband LOVED this so much he begged me to marinate some long grain brown rice and black beans in it overnight for him to take for lunch today.  I boiled the rice in water, added the canned beans and the red sauce and let it set up overnight.  It really tastes great.  It just needs a few fresh homemade tortillas to fill up and go.

In spite of my little little rice and beans experiment I STILL canned up 9 quart jars of deliciousness.

WHAT ARE YOU CANNING THIS WEEK??? 

Please SHARE!


I have linked this post to my favorite blog hops:  
Homestead Revival's Barn Hop #30 

and 
Deborah Jean's Dandelion House Farmgirl Friday Blog Hop.