Adventures in Preserving.... Enchilada Sauce

I've been buying enchilada sauce in cans for years, but recently I've wanted to try making it from scratch.  I searched for various recipes on the Internet, which range from mixing oil, flour, chili powder and other spices (no thank you!) to the more authentic or traditional Mexican grandmother's way of toasting ancho and pasilla dried chiles, roasting aromatics and then pureeing them with other vegetables and spices.  Because I wanted to have my enchilada sauce on hand in my pantry for the winter months, I finally turned to a canning jar company's website for a recipe and found this one along with instructions on how to process the enchilada sauce.  

I went to a nearby ethnic market and bought dried chiles.  I decided to use 12 Guajillos and 6 Chile New Mexico pods.  I then poured boiling water over the peppers along with a cinnamon stick to soften for 20 minutes.  I reserved the hot liquid, removed the stems but not the seeds from the softened chiles as well as the cinnamon stick, and put it into a blender.

I had also charred red onions and garlic in a cast iron grill pan and added them to the blender.

I have a bumper crop of heritage tomatoes, and so I also added a few tomatoes to the blender along with cumin seeds, Mexican oregano, thyme, and marjoram.  I wish I had remembered to add a bay leaf to the soaking water of the peppers, but next time.  I whirred this mixture until it was a smooth paste like below. 

I then cooked the pureed chiles, tomatoes, onion, garlic, oregano, cumin, marjoram and thyme and 2 teaspoons of salt until the sauce was less watery or to the thickness I wanted to preserve.  Did I mention the bumper crop of heritage tomatoes from the garden?  And so I had a pot of marinara sauce simmering next to the enchilada sauce.  

Lastly I processed the enchilada sauce with the marinara sauce in pint jars....the enchilada sauce needed only 50 minutes in the water bath but they ended up with the marinara in the same canning pot for an hour and 25 minutes.