Adventures in Spaghetti Sauce ...

Do you have those small things in life that always remind you of your childhood? I definitely do. I don't think I realized how much I missed them all until recently. Now that I'm settling into "normal" life ... post college, post grad school, post wedding simplicity... I'm really appreciating those moments of my youth.

One thing that defined every September of my childhood was canning. My Mom would can everything. One weekend it was peaches, another pears. We'd pick the beans from the garden, slice them through the bean frencher and freeze them. We'd harvest millions of tomatoes and make stewed tomatoes and spaghetti sauce. I really want those things to be passed on to my kids some day too! Those afternoons bonding with mom, squishing peaches out of the skin and mashing tomatoes through the food mill. I want that tradition to keep on living.

So my husband looked at me like I was crazy when I came home from our wonderful farmer's market with 25 lbs of tomatoes yesterday. Today was the test and I think I passed! Check out the pictures below and the recipe passed on from my Mom to me. Thanks Mom!!!

So 6 hours later I have 16 pints of wonderful spaghetti sauce that taste's just like Mom's! My kitchen is a bit of a mess but I think it's worth it. Here's my Mom's recipe to share with you (with a few edits of my own):

10 quarts of tomatoes (about 15 lbs)

4 onions, quartered
10 cloves of garlic

8 bay leaves
7 t salt
36 oz tomato paste
3 T sugar

8 T Little Italy Seasoning (from my favorite local spice shop http://www.thespicehouse.com/)

3 T garlic salt

Makes about 12 pints

Cut up and seed 10 quarts of tomatoes. Put tomatoes, onions, garlic, and bay leaves in tall pot. Simmer and stir frequently for an hour and a half to 2 hours until thick. Run entire mixture through a food mill into another large pot. Add tomato paste. Simmer for an hour, stir often. Add salt, sugar, and Little Italy Seasoning. Stir and taste. Put in jars up to ½ in from top, wipe, put seal on. Bring water to a boil in the meantime, put jars in and cover 1 in of water, boil for 10 minutes.