Awesome Sauce

Also known as Red Sauce, Pizza Sauce, and dip for your bread sticks!

Having a garden is GREAT.  Having your harvest come in a little at a time SUCKS!  Yeah, Yeah I know I was posting all summer that I am hauling in 12-16 lbs every few days, but dang it that is mostly cucumbers and squash!  So what’s a girl to do with tomatoes in quantities not worthy of skinning, dicing and canning or freezing?  ROAST THEM!!  Now I can’t tell you exactly how many of everything you need, not all tomatoes are created equal, but I can give you some estimates. I used this technique multipe times during the summer to create a nice stash of red sauce to use over the winter.  This reminds me I need to get on the ball and start using this great stuff. 

Just like the sun dried tomatoes I recommend the aluminum foil to avoid heavy clean up.  And BTW if this foil fails and the liquid gets underneath it might just be worth it to buy a new pan but that my friends is a story for a different day. 

What you will need

1-2 Onion, peeled and quartered or so depending on the size – I prefer sweet
1-2 bell peppers, what ever color in big rough pieces
3 or so heads of garlic with the tops cut off
Tomatoes – I used roma, grape and yellow pear what ever I had at the time
salt and pepper
olive oil
fresh herbs (oregano and rosemary)

Start by placing the garlic upright in random spots even placed through out the baking pan you are using, I have a couple of these Wilton Jelly Roll and Cookie Pans, 10 1/2 x 15 1/2 x 1 Inches Deepthat I use for bacon and things like this.  Now start cutting your tomatoes, for the smaller ones just cutting them in half is enough for the Roma depending on size you can cut them in 3-4 slices.  Spread the tomatoes all over the pan.  Now toss around the onions and peppers.  Drizzle olive oil over the garlic heads pretty heavily, remember we are roasting garlic here.  Run a light drizzle of olive oil over the pan of goodness, sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Now place your herbs, keep the rosemary in tact and just put clumps of oregano through out.  You want to be able to remove the dried up herbs when this is over.  Place this soon to be awesome in the oven at 350 degrees for the next several hours.  This is yet another thing I can’t tell you exactly because some tomatoes are JUICY and others are not the more liquid you need to burn off the longer this will take.  I take frequent visits to the oven to let the steam out and get a good face full of the smell  😉  . 

Once your goodies are starting to be dried out (you pick more dry less sauce and it’s thicker/dryer good for pizza more wet probably better for pasta).  Remove from the oven and let cool a bit.  Remove and discard the herbs.  Squeeze the garlic from the paper and place into the food processor, add the remaining items from your baking dish.  Now pulse that baby!  You now need to taste and check for seasoning.  A couple of times I have added fresh herbs and all times I have added a little bit of salt.  This stuff is amazing!!!

What to do with it now?  PIZZA? Pasta? Spread on bread? Dip for bread sticks? Lasagna?   We filled the Ball Plastic 8-Ounce Freezer Jars, 5 Pack so we could enjoy this all winter.