Dinner from Scratch

I was feeling a little bored about 2:30 this afternoon and decided to make some marinara sauce from scratch using all the tomatoes I had ripening on my counter from the garden. This is quite a lengthy process, the longer you cook it, the better the flavors. Last summer was my first attempt at this, and it turned out ok but not great.

First, blanch fresh ripe tomatoes for 1 minute. Cool in ice water and slip the skins off.

Core and cut out bad or tough spots, cut tomatoes in half or quarters and squeeze out seeds and juice. Crush the meat. This is a pretty messy process.

Yep, all over the floor and myself too. I'm happy this year I can put all the "waste" into my composters to go back into the garden. I love my composters.

Saute some onions, peppers (from the garden), and garlic. Add the tomatoes and cook for 30 minutes at least. Add some fresh herbs like basil, oregano, rosemary, and thyme from the garden.

Keep cooking! You can finally see a reduction of liquid. Add salt and pepper and taste and adjust.

Once it has reduced enough to start sticking if you don't watch it, puree in a food processor. I only did about  90% cause I wanted a few little chunks of seasoning for texture. Add some more fresh herbs and cook until you're ready to serve.

Serve with some oven fried eggplant (also from the garden) and fresh bread. Yummy Yum. It still is hard to believe this is the end result of tomatoes from my garden. Lots of work but very rewarding!