SUMMER BOUNTY–PASTA SAUCE

FOR A PRINTABLE RECIPE CLICK HERE
Part of my road trip earlier this month took me to the Okanagan region of British Columbia. This area is known for its orchards, grapes and produce. A visit to the roadside stands are always a treat.

One of the things I came home with was a case of Roma tomatoes. Romas are the best for cooking with as they have far fewer seeds and a lot less juice to flesh ratio. They are meaty. Let’s make pasta sauce.
The start to any good sauce is a good base. As usual in my cooking it is a method and not so much a recipe. You don’t need exact amounts. Add more of what you like and less of what you don’t. The method here is to sweat the vegetables well before adding anything else to the pan. This will build up their flavours.

Once you have cooked this combination down somewhat you can add in the herbs and spices and again cook it down further to further meld the flavours.
Lastly add in the chopped tomatoes. Many people choose to blanch them to remove the skins but I think this is a waste of time, flavour and nutrition.

Note this is just a small portion of the tomatoes I added. I filled the roasting pan.
You could always take an immersion blender to the tomatoes once chopped or to run them through a food processor to make them smooth but that would seem boring to me. I don’t want an applesauce consistency. I want a fresh tasting sauce that showcases the lovely tomatoes.
If you have some nice parmesan rinds saved up you can put those in too. They add some lovely flavours to your sauce.
I came up with a great way to process my tomatoes.

I put a big, clean bowl in the left side of my sink for the chopped tomatoes and washed the tomatoes in the right side. Using a cutting board with a cut out handle area I cut up the tomatoes there and just pushed the accumulating seeds and juice through the handle hole into the sink. It doesn’t matter if it drips onto your uncut tomatoes. It is all clean. Just cut up some more and scrape the rest into the sink. When you are done you just run some water around the sink and shake the seeds into the garbage right from the stopper. Quick and easy with no mess on your counters.

The little tomato belly buttons can be saved and used in a vegetable stock. Aren’t they cute?

• 6 carrots chopped
• 2 large onions, one minced, one coarse chopped (this gives you a lot of taste without too many onion pieces in the sauce)
• 8 stalks celery chopped
• 2 full heads of garlic…. hey it is a BIG pot of sauce
• 3 hot peppers
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons salt
• 3 tablespoons ground black pepper
• 3 tablespoons each of oregano, basil, thyme, fennel seeds
• olive oil to sautéing the vegetables
• rinds from parmesan cheese
  
  Run garlic and hot peppers through a food processor and add with rest of vegetables to a pan with enough olive oil to saute and sweat down.
  
  Add in herbs, spices, salt, black pepper and sugar. You do need the sugar to balance out the acid in the tomatoes. Cook down a little longer until vegetables are tender and then add in the chopped, drained tomatoes and the cheese rinds.
  Simmer in an open pot for a minimum of 4 hours to cook off the excess liquid and concentrate flavours. Stir occasionally. Remove chunks of parmesan before packing up or serving.
  
  I packed mine into plastic vacuum bags and they are all sealed up in my freezer to pull out on a cold fall or winters day to spoon over some of my OMG Meatballs. Click here for the link to that recipe.

Note this is different than my tomato sauce base which is just a start to creating many types of sauces. This recipe is a traditional pasta sauce and can be used as is (click for basic recipe and more photos).