Sauerkraut, Spaghetti Sauce, and Sugar free Apple Sauce

Steve and I have been pretty busy getting some of our canning done.  We made a batch of Spaghetti Sauce and another of Sauerkraut.  We can't forget to mention the Apple Sauce we made sweetened with Truvia.

This is a very simple recipe for Sauerkraut. 
Pack your sterilized jars with finely chopped cabbage add salt and boiling water. 
If you are making a quart jar of Sauerkraut add 2 teaspoons of salt, in our case we made 1/2 pint size jars so we added 1/2 teaspoon of salt.  We put the lids and rings on and put it in a hot water bath for 15 minutes.  Now it just takes waiting for a month for it to be ready to eat. 

The Spaghetti Sauce was a different story.  If you are going to make your own spaghetti sauce plan to spend several hours before it is done.  For our Spaghetti Sauce we
we started with 15 pounds of tomatoes that we washed removed the core and cut into quarters. We boiled that for 20 minutes then ran it through a food mill and discarded the seeds and skins.  With the sauce we added
 3/4 cups of chopped onion,
3/4 cup of chopped sweet pepper,
3 cloves of garlic (chopped),
1/4 cup snipped fresh parsley,
 3 tablespoons brown sugar,
 2 teaspoons of crushed dried basil,
 2 teaspoons of crushed dried oregano,
 1 tsp of crushed dried marjoram,
1 teaspoon of both pepper and canning salt. 
Once all of this was added the sauce was boiled down to half of the amount of sauce it started with.  It could be boiled down to your desired thickness.  This process takes a few hours to accomplish.  You could also 1/2 cup of mushrooms and 1 tablespoon of fennel seeds crushed of you would like.  We didn't add the mushrooms and fennel seeds to this batch.  We like our spaghetti sauce to have a sweeter flavor, if you don't reduce the amount of sugar. 
Once you get the sauce to your desired thickness, pour into hot sterilized jars, put on your lids and rings and hot water bath them for 20 minutes.

The Apple Sauce was also very easy to make. 

I filled a 3 quart sauce pan with apples that had been cored and cut into four.  I left the skins on and put just enough water in the pan to soften the apples.  I added 1 teaspoon of lemon juice to keep the apples from turning color.  Once the apples are soft run them through a food mill or sieve.   To the sauce I added 1/2 teaspoon of Cinnamon and 5 packets of Truvia.  I checked the flavor before I put it into sterilized jars.   I then put it in a boiling water bath for 20 minutes. 

If you try these recipes let us know how you like them.