celticdragonfly

So I've been reading various things in one of my email lists on the Eeeevils of high fructose corn syrup. I'd been thinking for some time it was NOT a good thing, this is a large part of why I canned my own strawberry jam for the family. The more I have been reading the more I'd like to get less of it in our diets. Not that I'm going to go on a diet as such - sounds like you can get a lot of benefit just getting away from the HFCS and onto more regular sugar.

So thinking of various and sundry foods that have a lot in it, and one of the things I was thinking of tonight is that I've been wanting for some time to make my own spaghetti sauce. Usually for us spaghetti means the stuff out of the jar, cook ground beef and add it, maybe a little merlot, handful of minced onion, some minced garlic if I have it. Really, that simple.

I would like to get away from the stuff out of the jar. So I want to get recommendations for what to make, proportions and such. Tomato sauce, tomato paste, etc., it's all a blur to me. It has to be SIMPLE. No, really, I know some of the foodies on my list, simpler than that. (I'm here because I've already rejected the stuff in the traditional cookbooks I've been given as overcomplex) We don't care for chunks-o-tomato, and Karl won't eat mushrooms, sigh. I'm wondering if we're going to need to add sugar so that it will taste right to us, since there IS so much HFCS in the stuff-outa-the-jar. Perhaps that's something I could slowly tone down over time.

My concern with doing it with the cans-o-tomato-whatever is that I also hear a lot of complains about "commercially canned veggies have way way too much salt!" But I really don't know if I want to learn to can my own tomato-sauce. From what kattelyn told me, it sounds like I'd need BUSHELS of tomatos for a few pints. Yeek.