Roasted Tomato Sauce

Feeling a bit saucy…sauce is my family’s lifeblood, it’s been like that for a few generations. We take our sauce seriously, and being able to make it from my own garden fresh ingredients just makes it that much the better. I used to be a bit of a tomato snob and only use paste tomatoes for my sauce, but I’ve loosened up over the years and now use whatever tomatoes are ripe and ready…cherry, paste, slicer…whatever your combination is, it’s sure to be delicious. One of my favorite things about making my sauce this way, is that it totally eliminates the runniness that you sometimes get when you make a batch of sauce with your garden fresh tomatoes. This is stick to the pasta kind of sauce….yum!

Ingredients:

tomatoes, cut in half

olive oil

sprig of thyme, minced

sprig of oregano, chopped

sprig of basil, chopped

2 cloves of garlic, minced

salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 400ºF.

Line cookie sheet with aluminum foil.

Cut the tomatoes in half and place cut side down a baking sheet. 

Bake for 12-15 minutes.

Drain excess water from tray.

Remove skin from tomatoes. (I use a tong for this.)

Place tomatoes in a bowl and puree using a hand blender. If you like a chunkier sauce, you can use a potato masher for crushing.

In a saucepan, add a good drizzle with olive oil and sauté the garlic for 30 seconds.

Add in tomatoes, thyme and oregano. 

Simmer on the stovetop for 20-30 minutes.

Remove from heat and add basil.

Season to taste with salt and pepper. 

Nothing beats a stocked freezer full of garden freshness come winter, so I always make sure to make an extra batch of sauce for freezing.