Sunday, November 16, 2014

Fresh Tomato Sauce

As summer is well over and fall is rushing towards winter, I figured I would post my favorite recipe for tomato sauce using fresh tomatoes today. Makes sense, huh? Actually, I was thinking of making pizza for dinner and remembered that we have some of this wonderful sauce leftover in the freezer. It also reminded me that I neglected to post this recipe despite making it several times over the course of the summer thanks to the abundance of tomatoes in my CSA share. Oh well.

This recipe is adapted from one I found at Oh She Glows. It calls for oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes as the secret ingredient, but I never have those on hand. Instead, I substituted tomato paste and added some balsamic vinegar and brown sugar. Yummy! I'm not sure whether it's due to the chunky freshness of the tomatoes, but it's definitely amore vibrant sauce than my go-to marinara sauce made from canned tomatoes in the slow cooker. I've used big tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, grape tomatoes and a combination thereof all with great success.

Sorry for the lack of pictures. One of these days I'll get back in the groove of food blogging but this will have to do for now....

Fresh Tomato Sauce
1 tbs extra-virgin olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, diced (about 1 cup)
2 large garlic cloves, minced
3 large tomatoes, seeded and diced (about 3 cups diced)
1 tsp dried basil
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/4-1/2 tsp fine grain sea salt, to taste
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Pinch of crushed red pepper flakes
1 TBS balsamic vinegar
2 tsp brown sugar
6 oz regular tomato paste (or 1-2 tbs of high quality tomato paste)

Saute onion in olive oil in a medium pot over medium heat for about 5 minutes, until the onion is translucent. Add garlic and cook for a minute. Season with salt and pepper.

Stir in the diced tomatoes and increase heat to high-medium to bring to a low boil. When the mixture boils, reduce the heat to medium and simmer for about 15 minutes, uncovered, until most of the water cooks off.

Stir in tomato paste, basil, oregano, crushed red pepper flakes, balsamic vinegar, brown sugar, and a bit more salt and pepper. Cook on medium-low for another 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally. If desired, using a hand blender puree until the texture is to your liking.

Enjoy with your favorite pasta or homemade pizza.