Slow Roasted Tomato Sauce

Max, I can just see you standing over a stock pot of boiling tomato sauce–with the temperature in the kitchen over 100. Your face was probably the same color as those tomatoes.

Now I don’t put up near the amount that you do, but I have found an easier way to make a tomato sauce. The recipe doesn’t call for peppers, onions and spices like your does, but they can be added. The oven roasting removes the long stirring of the stock pot.

This wouldn’t be a good recipe for you probably as you are wanting to can dozens of jars of sauce, but it is great for people like me who have only a few excess tomatoes and want to preserve them.

Actually, it you have a large freezer there is even an easier way to preserve excess tomatoes. You simply wash them and drop them whole in a large freezer bag. When you need them later on in the winter, you pull out as many as your recipe calls for and start from there. This is a tip from an old friend. The only problem is that when they thaw, they turn to mush, but after all you are going to cook them, so who cares?

Slow Roasted Tomato Sauce:

This makes about 3 cups. Can be doubled tripled, or quadrupled.

12 plum tomatoes, cores removed
2 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
1 cup chopped fresh basil

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Place tomatoes in a big roasting pan in a single layer. Drizzle them with the oil and shake the pan so the tomatoes are coated all over. Sprinkle on the salt, pepper and basil.

Place the lid on the roaster, or cover tightly with foil

Roast for one hour until the tomatoes have completely collapsed. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool.

When you can pick up the tomatoes, pick up each one and squeeze it to break each up coarsely. At this point the skins slip off easily. Or drop a few at a time into the food processor.

Place all the chopped tomatoes and the liquid in a heavy sauce pan. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 10 to 20 minutes. Taste for seasoning. Add salt, pepper or a little garlic.

Use at once, or freeze in plastic freezer containers for later use.