Homemade Spaghetti Sauce

12 cups of tomatoes

5 cups of water

2 cups mushrooms

1 pint cherry tomatoes

3 cups shredded carrots

1 small-medium yellow squash

1 small-t medium zucchini

5 cups of  finely chopped baby spinach

5 cloves of garlic

1 large yellow onion

1 1/2 cup olive oil

3 spoonfuls of  sugar

1 pinch of salt

3 large pinches of basil

6 1 ½ pint sized mason jars

1mixer

Clean your tomatoes really well because we are using the skins.

Cut your tomatoes into 4ths and place them in a pot along with just enough water to match the height of the tomatoes (for me that was 2 cups) then bring this to a boil and let boil for about 10-15 minutes or until the skins of the tomatoes start peeling off naturally and the tomatoes become really soft.

While you are bring the tomatoes to a boil, and letting them boil, clean and chop up your mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, yellow squash, zucchini,  and onion. Mince your garlic, and add all of this into a bowl with your finely chopped spinach and shredded carrots.

Your tomatoes should have sufficiently boiled at this point, so turn off the heat, and bring out the mixer. Keep the mixer on a low setting and mix/blend your tomatoes together, into a soup like substance. Be careful to allow the pot to cool completely before mixing and not to wear white, seeing as the watery nature of the pot mixture will cause it to splatter a lot. Keep the mixer on a low setting to help keep the splattering down as well.

Once you’ve mixed your sauce to your liking, add your bowl of mixed vegetables, and throw in your olive oil, sugar, salt, and basil. Then mix this all together.

Set the heat on super low, add the lid, and let sit for 3 hours.

So because I use 1 ½ pint jars for sauce I don’t have a pot big enough to hold them so here is another trick for sterilizing jars: stick them in the dishwasher.  Granted I don’t use this method often, since I hardly ever use my dishwasher at all, but in cases where there are big jars, I need to modify. So set your dishwasher on to sterilize the jars (mine has sterilize as an option) at the end of the 3 hours of your sauce cooking.

Then slowly bring your pot to a boil, like really slowly, the time it takes for your dishwasher to run, and then pour your sauce into jars. Make sure when you take the jars out of the dishwasher that they are still hot, and haven’t had a chance to cool down yet.

I also do not use wax for these because I freeze them. If you want to freeze them, you may just make sure you are using a freezer safe jar and that you leave at least ½ inch at the top of the jar for the sauce to expand when frozen.