I don't see anything "wrong" with what you did?? I don't get the jars in "hot tap water" before filling with tomato mixture? I usually start with as many EMPTY jars as can fit in pot. Then add water (usually with a pitcher since it will be VERY HEAVY lifting from sink to stove) to fill jars (so they won't float) and rest of pot to a bit over the top of everything. That way, I don't end up with too little or too much water once the filled jars go in. Once water comes to boil, with jars, they're sterilized and ready to pack.

After CAREFULLY dumping water out of jars, back INTO pot, I start filling them. While filling, I put all the lids & rings in pot of boiling water for just a few minutes... in a big strainer for ease of retrieving them... this softens ring on lid a bit so it makes a nice tight seal. By the time I have filled jars, rings/lids are cooled down enough to handle. Hand-tighten lids and into water bath for ??? minutes... however long "they" say. Then out on counter to wait for those PINGS.

NOT an expert, but didn't know carrots added acidity? Thought they were a sweetness thing? I think you're fine with this.

I would refrigerate your jars, or since this is a long cooked sauce, you could reprocess. I'm not sure I'd use them if they've been sitting out for a day now without reprocessing.

To reprocess, dump the contents opf all your jars into a pot. Clean your jars (new lids are recommended) . For a recipe that processes longer, it is not essential, but I boil the empty jars in my canning pot (covered with water and the lid on) and let them simmer 10 minutes before using. Once those are simmering, I'd bring your sauce up to a boil. Leave the heat on low under the canning pot while you remove the jars and empty the hot water out of them.

You want to pack the HOT sauce into HOT jars, remove air bubbles (knife or small spatula run around the jar), wipe the rims, then seal with the lids. The bands should only be screwed on finger tight so that air can escape when being processed. The jars then go back into the canning pot with hot water to be processed. This is what forces the air out -- creating a stronger seal and to prevent bacterial growth.

TOmato sauces process longer than jams and jellies and the time depends onthe size of jar. You also have a wild card in that your recipe has not been tested. Acidity needs to be added for safety, but do you know how much? People are fussy about recipes because not following them can lead to making you and others sick -- potentially fatal but definitely very miserable. You can get test strip to test pH, but I'm not expert enough to tell you more here. I hope some others chime in.

I strongly suggest you invest a few bucks and get a Ball Blue Book tohelp you learn the process rather than a hodgepodge of methods that mostly sound outdated. either of these are available on Amazon and most bookstores, even Walmart or Target and they will help you greatly.

and

kiseiverd -- the jars were not processed in a hot water bath at all. The jars were not sterilized, which would be essential to a short process or no process recipe. The untested recipe might not be too much of an issue if there was enough acidity, but the cooling and reheating (to a boil and simmered a bit or just heated?) and the handling of the jars plus no water bath -- I wouldn't keep it on the shelf.

To the OP, some issues will become apparent. I had some tomato based sauces that developed white spots on the top at about a year after canning. My experience has been that even my most carefully packed tomato products will last up to a year with careful water bath processing, but unlike jams and jellies, I don't let them go longer because I don't want to risk dumping them. Sometimes deterioration will cause change of color, bubbles, an off smell. There are other bacteria that will grow and not be obvious -- and those are the ones that will most likely make you very sick -- cuz you won't know they are there.

Get the Ball book and read on their website (I think it's home canning dot com though I also see fresh preserving dot com). You can branch out from there.

As a certified canning instructor, I would say you have a lot of bad (potentially deadly) information and practices you just incorporated. It's just as easy to follow safe methods and use tested recipes so you have safe results for your time and money invested. Please take the self-study coarse at the link below as a good place to start. I realize you put in a lot of work and time, but I would never suggest eating, especially the longer they sit on the shelf and the bacteria develops into a toxin, what you just described as "canning", because nothing could be further from it.

1. Never make up your own recipes. You have no idea what the pH is. Plus, you are adding a dangerous canning method - open kettle canning - to the mix.

2. Why open kettle canning is a REALLY bad idea!!!

Many of today's vegetables and fruits have been genetically altered for taste, disease resistance and shipping characteristics. These changes mean things like tomatoes, which are boarder line for being acid enough we need to add an acidic ingredient to them for canning, may not have enough acid. You may be adding so many low-acid foods, as well as oil, you don't have enough acid to be safe even if you did a boiling water bath.

Just because the lid seals doesn't mean bacteria won't grow in the oxygen-free environment. In fact, the opposite is true - that's the perfect place. Especially since you didn't sterilize the jars/funnel/bubble remover, etc.

We also have more types of bacteria, and more dangerous bacteria, than even existed back when open kettle canning was popular. Most home-canned foods were eaten quickly - canned during harvest and consumed by spring. Home canned food was stored in much cooler conditions. Even today, canning books recommend that the optimal storage temperatures for canned foods should be between 50-70 degrees F.

When it comes to home canning, it's better to be safe than sorry...... If you have a County Extension Office in your area, give them a call, or make an appointment and stop in, and share with them what you did. They will be able to give you up-to-date recipes and information.

-Grainlady

Here is a link that might be useful: National Center for Home Food Preservation

Thank you, grainlady!

Laura, you might want to visit GW's
Harvest forum. That seems to be the center of canning talk on GW.

There's a difference between canning something that "might make you sick" and canning something that "might kill you!" If you can acid foods improperly, you might get some mold and related sickness problems. But if you can a low acid food improperly, you might get deadly botulism. Modern tomatoes are on the borderline of being acid, which is why modern tomato canning methods usually add a bit of lemon juice or citric acid to the canning jar contents when doing tomatoes with a boiling water bath. If you mix low acid vegetables with mildly acidic tomatoes, there is no way of knowing if it will be acid enough. Carrots are NOT acidic. Here is a link to a chart on the acidity levels of various fruits and vegetables. Not the best chart, but things at the top of the diagram are acidic, and things at the bottom are not. Tomatoes, as you will see, are on the border.

National Center for Home Food Preservation Acid/Alkaline Chart

You've added a plethora of low acid ingredients to tomatoes, which were already on the border of what can be canned safely using a boiling water bath. That includes carrots, basil, oil, peppers, and garlic. There is no way of knowing if it is acid enough to prevent the growth of botulism. Also, you have not created a vacuum seal by just using hot water to create the seal. It may or may not be a long-lasting vacuum seal. I have had seemingly tight seals that were not vacuum sealed come undone, even though the seals "popped." A vacuum seal is created when AIR in the jars gets really hot and expands. Then, as the jar cools, the air contracts and creates the tight seal. Again, now way of knowing if this happened in your jars. That's one reason for the BOILING part of Boiling Water Bath canning, to create temperatures high enough for the expansion of the air molecules in the jars.

Lastly, you have not really sterilized your jars in any way, so regular old nasty bacteria could grow in your sauce, along with botulism in the low oxygen environment.

So you're taking three types of risks. I would never subject myself to this kind of thing, particularly when one of the risks is death by botulism. How great a risk it is--impossible to say, but I make it a habit to avoid known death risks as much as I can. There are plenty of similar canning recipes in the Ball Book of Canning and Preserving that I know have been scientifically tested for safety. So why risk it. I would take the sauce out of the jars, boil it for 20 minutes and then just freeze it. Problem solved.

Even if your chances of getting ill are small, why take the risk? Follow a tested recipe. Your product may be too high pH to safely water bath can. A commercial gourmet food producer in my area quit selling several products after some people got botulism from their pesto. (There are probably lawyers involved.) Don't risk your health - if the tested recipe sounds too boring, you can add extra ingredients when you take it out of the jar and heat it up to eat.

All good advice above and comments already made pretty much covered things. (I concur: buy the latest Ball Blue Book! )
I only would add a couple of thoughts... It sounds from the description ["placed in pot 1/2 full of simmering water"] that the water in the canner did not cover the filled jars completely + an inch or so as is required for SAFE BW bath canning. Again, Ball will teach you that. Only in a pressure canner is a smaller amount of water used as it is the steam (hotter than boiling water) that does the trick.

Also, the herbs: basil is a delicate lady that only should be added to a dish a few minutes prior to serving or you may as well forget it. :-)
Others, like the oregano used, are not enhanced by such a long simmer but instead may change flavor (not in a good way, e.g., bitter).