I don’t really cook huge meals so I don’t own many large pots. I’ve currently got that pot in the photo going (with the lid off) as well as the electric pressure cooker (on sauté, lid off) with about half the volume of the epc in the fridge waiting for some of this to reduce.
I do the actual water bath canning in large enamel pots in a propane burner outside. I pressure can indoors (one layer only, in a pressure canner made for glass top/induction) so neither of those are really suitable for sauce making.
Do folks just live with doing things in batches? Should I just accept I could use another large pot I only use once a year?
This is about half of the 60 lbs we are preserving this year. I’m going to blanch and dice some tomatoes using a smaller pot and put those in the fridge to do the cooking step tomorrow for crushed tomatoes while the sauce is in the water bath canner.
I’m also thinking of getting an electric roaster which I can leave on the counter top. I bought a slow cooker at the thrift shop a few years ago but didn’t realize they didn’t get hot enough to reduce sauce in 🤦♀️
I try not to own too much stuff, but I do have the room (in the basement lol).
Are you making sauce-sauce? Like, not canned diced tomatoes or something? I canned tomatoes for a while, and I still do for recipes like salsa or marinara. But if I just want tomatoes reduced to sauce for later use, I just boil them down into tomato paste, freeze them in ice cube trays, then decant then into ziploc freezer bags. When I need tomato-whatever, I just grab the frozen cubes and reconstitute them back to whatever the appropriate level is: juice, sauce, soup, puree, etc. I just found it to be less fiddly than canning tomatoes, and I’d rather spend that time and energy canning giardinieri, jams, corn, beans, or whatever else is in season.
That’s amazing! I’m looking to get into making large batches and canning/freezing them.
Any tips or links for noobs?
Maybe the main tip I can offer is to get to know what is realistic to can at home.
This is just milled tomato. You can add salt, maybe a basil leaf, but not much else if you are water bath canning. I use my pressure canner for low acid foods, but still just single ingredients mostly - like potatoes or beans that I grow.
These are my two main sources of info:
Your library probably also has recipe books - look for books where they talk about the recipes being tested for food safety. The kind of bad stuff that gets into canned food can’t be detected by taste or smell!
Have fun - it’s a really rewarding hobby.
I second the callout for NCHFP. They sell a fantastic recipe book that goes into all sorts of ways to preserve foods (it’s called So Easy to Preserve). The site is really good, but it’s nice to be able to have the book open while working on a recipe. It’s also nice to just read through for the science behind why you should preserve certain foods in certain ways.
Thank you so much! I’ll check those websites out
Maybe you’d like something similar to this:
https://www.amazon.com/Cooks-Standard-12-Inch-Stainless-Everyday/dp/B01HJB3PJK
It reduces sauces quickly because surface area, the bottom fits the big circle on the stovetop, it works for stir frying, and in the oven. It’s dishwasher safe, just a bit tricky to fit in there. Just for less duplication of what you have. My only problem is finding room to store it, so I just leave it on the stovetop and use it all the time. Note: I’m not sure about induction! (Edit: it’s compatible)
Oh yeah, something that shape would be useful. I worry it would need a lot of baby sitting but maybe I just need to accept that!
When I want a lower simmer, I turn on the smaller ring to low and stir once in awhile to be sure nothing sits out by the edge not cooking. But if I’m available to keep stirring, I use the wider ring and more heat to evaporate off a lot of liquid quickly.
