Scott's Homemade Marinara Sauce

Saute in pan:

4-5 cloves crushed garlic

1 onion, chopped

with about:

1/8 c. olive oil

1 T. sugar

splash of white cooking wine

Cook until onions are slightly tender.

Add:

3 cans tomatoes or 3 - 5 c. chopped fresh tomatoes

2 cans tomato sauce

1 1/2 tsp. salt

pepper

2 - 3 T. of fresh basil

1 - 2 T. of fresh oregano
optional: a few red pepper flakes

Simmer as long as you want. Serve over pasta, spaghetti squash, or vegetables. You can use this with any Italian recipe as well as for pizza sauce.

Yummm!!!

*** For Canning***

For 20 LBS of tomatoes (half a bushel), times above recipe by about 10.
20 lbs of tomatoes gives you between 45-50 cups of finely diced tomatoes.
I like to peel my tomatoes. to do so, just add to really hot water (not yet boiling) for about 1 -2 min.
To make the tomatoes more acidic, add 2 T. of bottled lemon juice per batch.  If I had 10 batches, I would add 20 T. of lemon juice.
Pour sauce in hot bottles and process for 45 min. in hot water bath.
You will get about 18 quarts from 20 lbs of tomatoes.

Notes:

I like it better w/o skin.
Have as big of pots as you can for simmering.
For ease of pouring the marinara into the bottles, a funnel is very helpful.

Aug 2015: I did 60 lb of tomatoes which gave me 28 quarts of sauce (because that's all that could fit in my 2 pots) plus 7 pints of diced tomatoes.