Roasted tomato and garlic sauce, now with pictures!

Earlier this year I posted my recipe for roasted tomato and garlic pasta sauce for my daughter Meghann. When she was out visiting with the grandkids in August I made a double batch so she could watch and we decided to turn it into a photo blog. So here's a repeat, only this time with pictures (all pictures by Meghann McLeroy).

Preheat oven to 400°.

First, get yourself a bunch of Roma tomatoes (this recipe is the main reason why I planted seven Roma plants this year). The nice thing about this recipe is the tomatoes don't have to be perfect. Some can be a little early. Some can be a bit over-ripe. Blemishes are OK (but not bug-eaten parts - ew). You're not making a Caprese salad, you're making pasta sauce, so the looks aren't that important.

How much is a bunch? About this much:

I dunno - maybe four or five dozen?

You'll also need some peeled garlic cloves. Figure on four or five per dozen tomatoes. If you don't like garlic, you're reading the wrong blog.

How the Lehmer household remains vampire-free

Wash the tomatoes and then slice them in half lengthwise.

Careful with those fingers!

Put the halves in a large plastic container.

Lots more to go

When the container's almost but not quite full, liberally drizzle on some extra virgin olive oil.

Actually, don't be as skimpy as the picture shows

Now you have a bowlful of oily tomatoes.

Shiny!

Put a lid on the bowl and holding on tightly shake it up real good to distribute the oil all over the tomatoes and loosen up the seeds.

Shake, shake, shake

Put all the tomatoes from the bowl on a cookie sheet that you don't care much about and make sure they are all turned split side up.

We ended up with two pans like this

There will be juice and oil left over in the bowl. Drizzle it all over the tomatoes.

Forecast for today - drizzle

Spread out the garlic cloves by putting them into the little "cups" formed when some of the tomato halves lost their seeds.

Mmmm - garlic

Salt.

Pass the hypertension

Put in the oven for an hour. If you can't fit both pans on one level then you will need to swap them at the half hour mark and probably cook them a little longer.

In you go!

Go get some fresh herbs out of the garden. Dried herbs will work if you don't have fresh. I like to use basil (both green and purple here) and oregano.

Pretty

Wash the herbs and trim the leaves off the stems (discarding the stems, obviously).

Mixed greens

Fortify yourself for the work ahead.

Named for a famous city and island

Peel and quarter two onions.

Yellow, white, red - whatever

Check the tomatoes periodically. You want them to get a bit browned or even blackened (we like some of them to get blackened).

The smoke detector will tell you when you're done

The batch I made last night was actually more blackened than this. We like the dark crunchy bits.

Mmmm - carbon

For each batch put some dry red wine in the blender. There will be at least one batch per cookie sheet.

About this much per batch

Put in half the onions.

Time for a bath, guys

Add a bit of pepper.

Tasty

And half the herbs.

In you go!

Scrape the tomatoes off the cookie sheet. Make sure to get plenty of the blackened stuff off the bottom. This is why I say to use cookie sheets you don't care about.

Nice and roasted

Put the tomatoes in the blender plus any juice and oil left in the cookie sheet.

Getting all the good stuff

Put the lid on the blender (duh).

Hold on tight!

Blend.

Not too fast nor too slow

You want it to end up being the consistency of, well, pasta sauce.

Almost done

Check to see if it's done.

It's done

Now freeze it in containers big enough for one night's supper each. You could probably also can it, but two cookie sheets doesn't make enough to really bother with all that hassle (I'd estimate the amount shown here would make five or six pints or two-plus quarts). When you're ready to use a batch nuke it on defrost level to get it softened up and then heat as usual for pasta sauce. You can fry hamburger meat and then add the sauce to that as well. It goes especially well when served on pasta as a side to steaks or Italian sausages.

Enjoy!