Basic Pasta Sauce

I made pasta sauce for the first time this year. The tomatoes i used are from last year so they have been in the freezer since then. These are not your standard rhoma tomatoes. In fact I don't even remember which kind we planted! Anyways, since I froze and have thawed the tomatoes they have released allot of the liquid. I put a hole in the bottom of the bags, small holes, and let the water drain off, then I toss them in a colander and drained even more water off. After that I put them through the food processor to break down the skins. YES! I use the skins in my sauce. Why waste all that good stuff by removing the skins?? Now they are ready for my 6qt sauce pan and be made into sauce. The pan was about half full of sauce and gave me about 5 pints of finished sauce. Dice up one whole bell pepper minus the seeds and stems, about 5 cloves of garlic pressed, and one whole onion (I used the normal yellow onion in one bath and a purple in another. in the end it doesnt matter) and about 3tbsp Italian seasoning, and 2Tbsp apple cider vinegar. Let it cook on the stove to simmer and boil down for a 2 hours. I added some of the liquid I drained off back to the pot. You don't want it to be too thick. But you don't want to make a soup either. LOL. Once it has reached a consistency you like then can them as per normal canning instructions. This is a total off the cuff recipe that has yielded delicious results. I don't think you can make any mistakes with this one. I spent allot of time looking over various pasta sauce recipes and I didn't find any I liked and allot of them called for red wine. Well i don't drink wine (I know, that's blasphemy for some of you) and I didn't want to have to buy and open a bottle use 1/2 of it then toss the rest down the drain. It would be a waste. So this is what I came up with. One of the recipes I did look at was from Americas Test Kitchen (One of my fave shows and one of my fave cook books is by them) added the apple cider vinegar to help balance out the acidity of the tomatoes. No argument from me. It all turned out great! I will make a list of what I added to make it more reader friendly.

Mamma Seiders Basic Pasta Sauce

Tomato's
Italian Seasoning spice mix
1 large green bell pepper
1 medium sized yellow onion
3-5 cloves garlic
Slice up tomato's removing any blemished spots and stems; freeze them. this helps them release moisture.
Thaw and drain off excess liquid. reserve this for later
Pace tomato's in food processor and liquefy them.
Once you have pureed your tomato's pour them into your pot on medium heat.
Cut and removed seeds and stem of bell pepper. dice and toss into pot.
Remove peel and ends of onions, dice and toss in pot
Add Italian seasoning to your taste. I used 3 tablespoons.
Mix in 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar.
Reduce heat to low and simmer for about 2 hours stirring occasionally so nothing sticks to the bottom of the pan. if your sauce has gotten to thick add some of that reserve liquid to thin it out.
Once your sauce has the flavor and consistency you like follow normal water-bath canning directions. and TA-Da! Delicious homemade pasta sauce!