Canning Smoked Pasta Sauce (recipe)

Before I get to the recipe, let me tell you where it all began. It was a cool, autumn morning in 1999. The sun was partly obscured by the clouds and...

Nah, I'm only kidding. Let's get cooking!

Special Materials:

- smoker and smoker fuel (I use a 4-rack Bradley)

- water bath canner & accessories

- 8-9 pint sized mason jars and lids

Ingredients:

- 20 to 25 pounds of tomatoes (I harvest mine throughout the season as they ripen and freeze them in ziploc bags until I'm ready to can)

- 4 to 5 large onions (I like yellow, and I throw in some shallots as well)

- 1/2 cup sugar or honey

- 1/4 cup salt

- As much garlic as your heart desires (I use 1-2 heads)

- Spices (I use oregano, basil, cumin, Italian seasoning, chili flakes, 2-3 bay leaves.)

- 2tsp Worcestershire sauce

- 1 cup lemon juice (reserve a bit for the mason jars at the end)

- a bit of oil

Directions:

1. Preheat your smoker to 250F.

2.Cut half your tomatoes in half (or in quarters for XL tomatoes) and place them cut-side up on lightly oiled smoker trays or however you're going to smoke them. Reserve the rest of the tomatoes. Smoke the tomatoes for 2 hours.

3. Take the skin of the rest of the tomatoes. How you do this is up to you but no matter the method, it's a pain. The primary way is to score them and blanch them in boiling water. Then move them to an ice bath and you should be able to remove them fairly easily. If you're using frozen and then thawed tomatoes like I have, the skins mostly just fall off. Fair warning, thaw them in bowls or you'll end up with a big mess when they thaw. Discard the juice from thawing, this will actually save you time in boiling down the sauce.

4. Place the tomatoes in a stock pot

5. Finely chop the rest of your veggies and garlic. If you have a food processor, this comes in handy here. Add these to the stock pot along with your spices, honey/sugar, Worcestershire, and 3/4 of the lemon juice.

6. When your smoked tomatoes are done, let them cool enough until you can manipulate them enough to remove the skins if they're still on. Add these to the stock pot.

7. Add some water. The more you put, the longer you'll have to reduce the mixture, but you do need some in there. I usually fill it about half way. As the tomatoes cook down, they release more as well. See Note 4 below for a tip.

8. Bring the pot to a boil. Reduce to a simmer (uncovered) for 4-5 hours. Stir it occasionally.

9. Taste the sauce and adjust spices to your liking. Remove and discard the bay leaves when you are satisfied.

10. Add 1tbsp of lemon juice to each of your warm, sterilized pint jars. Ladle your sauce into the jars leaving 1/2" headspace in each jar. Wipe the rims, centre your lids and screw on the bands until just finger tight. Do not screw them on too tight! Place them in your water bath canner that is simmering and process the jars for 40 minutes. Remove them once complete and leave them alone to cool.

Note: The time for canning depends on your altitude from sea level. Adjust this as necessary.

Note 2: This photo above includes some small jars. These were a roasted tomatillo salsa and smoked high-bush cranberry BBQ sauce that I made at the same time. If you'd like either of those recipes, let me know!

Note 3: Holy moly, how long does this take?? All day. It takes all day. But the actual effort required is small, it's just a lot of waiting between steps. Start smoking the tomatoes first thing in the morning and you should have your sauce canned by dinner time. When I do this, we always have pasta that night, so I don't have much more cooking to do that day and is a great way to use up any extra sauce that doesn't quite fit in a canning jar.

Note 4: If your sauce is too runny after the 4-5 hours of simmering, you can reduce it manually. I find the easiest way to do this is to place a fine mesh sieve onto your sauce in the pot. This will allow just the liquid to push through and leave your delicious sauce below. Then use a ladle to ladle out as much water as you feel necessary. I find this much easier than trying to balance a hot pot of sauce over the sink and pouring out liquid into a sieve, and then returning the extra sauce back to the pot.