Mom's Pizza Sauce

My busy canning season like the rest of the year has been a bit odd.  In the past, my husband would pick up two hampers of tomatoes at a time so I usually made four to six products sometimes more.  In the end, I would usually process ten hampers of tomatoes over a seven to ten day period which meant long, tiring days back-to-back.  This tomato season has been slow and relaxed.  So far, I've processed two hampers of tomatoes into three products - pizza sauce, dehydrated tomatoes and tomato powder.  I won't reach the ten hamper mark which is fine since I've been busy canning a lot of other foods as well.  This busy canning season is also a bit different in that I am doing a lot of tweaking and fine tuning of flavours to create unique home canned foods tailored to our family's tastes.

We use a lot of pizza sauce and I make extra to give to the kids.  This year I tweaked the pizza sauce recipe that I had previously modified from Bernardin's Tomatoes Canning & Speciality Recipes (2000).  Pizza sauce must be acidified so both the original and modified versions include lemon juice as the acidifier.

In my newest version, Mom's Pizza Sauce, the acidifier is citric acid added on a per jar basis just before sealing.  I tweaked the seasonings and added that little extra touch of flavour that sets this pizza sauce apart from the ordinary.  My husband determined the exact consistency he wanted for making homemade pizza.  While I make the dough, he usually shapes the dough and does the toppings.  The end result was a delicious, tasty tomato based pizza sauce worthy of being called Mom's!