Homemade Spaghetti Sauce

I have always wanted to make my own spaghetti sauce, so when I received several tomatoes, I knew it was time to try it.  I did not have a written recipe, just a basic idea of what I needed to do to make the sauce.

I had hoped to make the sauce with only fresh ingredients such as tomatoes, green peppers, onions, garlic, basil, oregano, olive oil, salt & pepper, but I eventually ended up adding a little sugar, garlic powder, onion powder and a can of tomato paste.

First, I chopped two onions and two bell peppers and sauteed them in a pan with eight cloves of  minced garlic.

Next, I boiled tomatoes, four at a time in a pot of water for two minutes each.  I used twenty tomatoes in this recipe.

About two minutes after the tomatoes started boiling, their skins cracked.

After removing the tomatoes from the boiling water, I put them in a bowl of cold water to stop the cooking process.

Next, we peeled the tomatoes.

And then cored them.

And chopped them.

Then, I put them in a pot with a couple of tablespoons of fresh, chopped basil and oregano (probably dried would have had a more potent flavor) salt, and pepper.

Next, I added the sauteed onion, garlic, and bell peppers and I simmered the sauce for several hours aka, most of the day. 

I had hoped that the sauce would reduce and thicken, but I eventually had to add one small can of tomato paste to help this process along.  Near the end of the cooking process, I had to adjust the seasonings, meaning it was time to add more salt and pepper, five more cloves of minced garlic a couple of teaspoons of sugar, some garlic powder and onion powder.  This is also when I added the olive oil.  I didn't measure it, just kept adding and tasting.  Once the flavor was how I wanted it, I blended it in batches to make it the consistency that I wanted.

I ended up with two and a half quarts of sauce. 

One and a half quarts are in the freezer waiting for another day and the last quart I used with our dinner tonight.  I browned one pound of hamburger with half of a chopped onion.  Once that was cooked and drained, I added the spaghetti sauce, one chopped yellow squash, and several sliced black olives.  We had this sauce over spaghetti for dinner.  Delicious!