Roasted Tomato Sauce.

This year I purposely planted a shitton of Roma tomatoes because I knew if Dave and Finn didn’t eat them, I could make sundried {oven dried} tomatoes or tomato sauce that we could freeze.  It inevitably happens in our house that the first few tomatoes are a huge treat and get eaten up immediately, and then ALL of the rest of them explode at the same time and we can’t eat. one. more. tomato.  Dear God.  The humanity tomatoes.

One little caveat… I have zero experience with sauce.  My Meme makes a mean lasagna, but she uses canned tomatoes.  Please don’t tell the Italians. 

So maybe this tomato planting plan was less than thought out?

Then, I remembered a bajillion years ago… or 6 weeks ago…

Tom-A-Toe. Tom-Ah-Toe.

I pinned this lovely recipe for roasted tomato sauce from Dalai Mama Dishes at Disney Family.

Incidentally, if we are not friends on Pinterest, WHY NOT??  Be my friend!

So, if you are a recipe follower that needs exact instructions, click over.  If you’re more of a wing it kind of girl, I’ll tell you just how I did it.  You truly don’t need a follow it to a T recipe for this one.

• Preheat your oven to 375.
• Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.  {If you want to do a small batch, just do one baking sheet.}  You will want to use the ones with sides because there is quite a bit of liquid.
• Go out to your garden and pick what feels like a metric ton of tomatoes.  Question your sanity.  Or pick them up at the farmer’s market for super cheap and pat yourself on the back for not having to grow tomatoes.
• Cut them up into chunks if they are large, halves if they are Romas.  Cut up an onion.  Peel some garlic.  {Maybe 6-8 individual cloves?}
• Throw the tomatoes, onion and garlic {leave it whole} on the parchment paper.  Pour on a little olive oil.  Sprinkle with sea salt, black pepper, and Italian seasoning.  Roast for 2 hours until the veggies get all caramelized and wilty and delicious.

 

• Allow to mostly cool.
• Throw the whole lot in a food processor.  {I did two batches.}  You could probably also use a blender here, but you might need to add a little liquid to make it work because the sauce is pretty thick.  {You could use a little red wine or water for the liquid.}
• Pour into muffin tins for freezing.  {Roughly 1/3 – 1/2 cup per muffin cup, which is perfect for one person.  When you go to serve, pull out one per person to thaw.}
• Once completely frozen, pull out of the freezer, allow to sit on the counter for 15 – 20 minutes and pop them out of the muffin trays.  They will pop right out at that point, but still will be frozen.  If you try to pop them out right away, you’ll be swearing and taking chunks out with a knife… or something. 
• Store in a freezer bag.

 

Then, pat yourself on the back and feel like a pioneer for making the best pasta sauce ever FROM FREAKING TOMATOES.  Who does that? 

Pioneers, that’s who.

So, you can serve just like that right over pasta or because I always screw with recipes, you can do like I do when you’re ready to eat this masterpiece...

Sautee a couple mild Italian sausages until cooked through.  Remove from the pan.

Dump in a cup of red wine to deglaze the pan.  Dump in three or four tomato sauce muffin cups {they can even still be frozen, they will thaw}  whisk together the wine and tomato sauce.  Let that get warm and bubbly.

Add half a cup of heavy cream, whisking the whole time.

Cut up the Italian sausage and add back to the pan.

Add your cooked pasta and some fresh basil.

 

Sigh at the goodness exploding on your tongue and never go back to store bought sauce again.