Picture Perfect Cooking

I love tomato sauce and I use a LOT of it in my cooking.  This year I decided to grow paste tomatoes in the hopes of making my own.  Well, I grew them and I made this sauce.  It is wonderful…full of delicious tomato flavor with a beautiful color and texture, BUT, this took hours of my time and only made 3 CUPS of sauce.  You read that right, not 3 pints or 3 quarts, but only 3 cups of sauce.  Oh, no! 

I love it, but I’m not sure if it is worth all of the time involved to do it.  If I was home more and had more tomatoes to process at one time, maybe I could do it, but right now I just can’t justify it.  I’m kind of sad about that, too.

I started with this recipe from Smitten Kitchen and tweaked it to suit myself.  If you have a few hours to spare, give it a shot because it is tasty just time consuming.

4 to 5 lbs. paste tomatoes

1 sweet pepper

1 small onion

3 cloves garlic

1 medium carrot

1/2 to 1 tsp. salt

1 tbsp. honey

1/4 cup olive oil

Italian seasoning to taste

First you need to peel your tomatoes by shocking them.  Bring a large pot of water to a boil and prepare an ice bath in another large bowl.  Wash and dry the tomatoes and then slice a small “x” into the bottom of each one.

Blanch the tomatoes in the boiling water for about 30 seconds or until the peel starts to loosen.  Immediately drop them in the ice water and the skins will come right off.

Next, rough chop the remaining vegetables and put in a food processor.  Pulse until these are almost a paste.  Using the pot that you blanched the tomatoes in, cook the vegetable paste in olive oil for about 10 minutes, stirring often.

While these are cooking, chop the peeled tomatoes and seed them if you are not planning on straining the sauce.  Add the tomatoes to the pot and lower the heat to medium-low to simmer.  Add the honey for just a little sweetness. Let it cook, stirring occasionally, for 45 minutes. 

Since I wanted my sauce to be smooth, I poured the cooked sauce back into the food processor in batches and processed until smooth.  Then pour the pureed sauce through a strainer and add the Italian seasoning at this point.  I think I used about 1 tablespoon.  Whew, now it’s done.  I put mine into freezer bags to freeze, but, if you have enough, you can also can this.