Canning Homemade Spaghetti Sauce

I have a lot of once a month cooking and pantry stocking plans coming up in preparation for before and after I have my baby.  One of the bulk meals I will be making is homemade spaghetti sauce for spaghetti and pasta.  Today, I only made one large batch but was able to get 10 quarts of sauce.  I canned 7 quarts of it and saved 3 quarts for using this week. 

Here’s the break down of what went into my sauce:

• 2 of the #10 cans of tomato sauce.  I bought the #10 cans at Sam’s Club and paid $2.72 for each can.  Each can is 6 lbs 9 oz. of sauce. 
•  2 lbs of grass-fed beef.  We raise our own meat and just returned from the butcher last week to pick up our meat.  More on that later….but I used 2 lbs of our beef.  I was having a hard time cooking it because it was so lean. My cost break down for the meat is about $1 a pound for butchering and packaging.
• 2 lbs of pastured pork sausage.  We also raised the pork.   I used 2 lbs of medium heat sausage.   
• 2 cups of red wine.  I had some left over Merlot that I added at the last minute. 
• 1 package of fresh mushrooms–chopped.   I bought the mushrooms at Sam’s for $3.49. 
• 1 very large red onion–chopped.
• 4 crushed garlic cloves. 
• 2 cans of black olives–chopped.
• Fresh basil from the garden.  Fresh chopped basil smells so wonderful!
• A lot of sweet mini orange, red and yellow peppers–chopped. 
• A variety of other spices like Italian seasonings:  oregano, bay leaf etc…  Also, salt and pepper.   

The #10 cans of Hunt’s Sauce worked quite well for making a large amount of sauce at one time.  It all fit fine in my 11 quart pot…although very full after adding everything. 

I actually had two iron pans full of meat.  I cooked the sweet peppers, garlic and mushrooms with the hamburger and cooked the sausage in another pan.  After it was finished cooking I added it to the sauce and simmered it all for several hours on low…stirring often.   

I chopped a couple of cans of black olives and chopped up a bunch of fresh basil from the garden.  I also added the seasonings. 

I was planning on freezing the sauce in gallon size freezer bags, but instead, I changed my mind and decided to can the sauce to stock my pantry shelves with. 

This would be one of those food quality vs. price situations because I estimated that it cost me about $14 to make 10 quarts of sauce.   It turned out better than any store bought sauce I’ve purchased!  In my book, an excellent price for wonderful gourmet homemade sauce!