While I was up in PA my BFF and I stopped by a small roadside stand at an Amish farm not too far from her own. They had several baskets of tomato 'seconds' set out for sale, so for $2 I got what I estimate to be around 10 lbs of assorted tomatoes. I knew immediately that I would be making my mom's chili sauce! I am not a fan of bottled chili sauce from the store since to me the consistency is more like flavored ketchup. Not at all what I think of when mom's comes to mind with small pieces of tomato, pepper and onion clearly visible. While out and about with middle daughter and grandsons yesterday I used a gift card to Target that I'd been saving and picked up a dozen new pint size canning jars with lids and rings (I had given most of my jars to oldest daughter a few years ago when she was on a canning kick) and made a stop at a local farmer's market to get a small basket of reduced red bell peppers ($1) and three large sweet onions ($1.50). I also ended up having to run to the local grocery store this morning for more apple cider vinegar since I didn't have a backup bottle of this on the pantry shelf as I thought I did.
I boiled a pot of water and dipped the tomatoes in to peel them, once peeled, I seeded and chopped them roughly and put them in to my dutch oven. I added three seeded and finely chopped red & green bell peppers, two large chopped sweet onions, 2 cups vinegar, 1 1/2 cups brown sugar, 1 tablespoons of ground allspice, 2 tablespoons pickling salt, 1 teaspoon ground cloves, 1 teaspoon ground ginger, 1 tsp ground cinnamon, 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg and 1 teaspoon celery seed.
I let this simmer on the stove, stirring frequently for 3 hours. Once the sauce thickened up I dished it into 6 hot sterile glass canning jars, put on lids and lightly put on the rings, and then processed them in a hot water bath for fifteen minutes. Once the jars were cool I tightened up the lids and voila, I now have 6 pints of homemade chili sauce:
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