Roasted Summer Tomatoes

Submitted by COOKGIRl

"What to do with that surplus of summer tomatoes from your garden? Make tomato sauce! Use for preparing as a base for pasta sauce, stews or soups, etc. For good luck, I tossed in a few golden tomatoes in addition to a variety of heirloom tomatoes. Quality and the freshest ingredients are very important! Omit the basil if you want a more "generic" sauce. Makes about 2 1/2 cups smooth sauce, 4 cups chunky sauce. "Roasting fresh tomatoes until they’re soft on the inside and beautifully browned on the outside concentrates their flavor. They come out of the oven gloriously golden and wrinkled and are wonderful gems to have on hand in the refrigerator and freezer for simple sauces and stocks over the days and months to come. Puree them into a velvety sauce right after roasting or freeze them in their chunky state and decide what to do with them later in the year." Please note for the record I did not peel the tomatoes for this recipe. Local recipe."

 

• Ready In: 50mins
• Ingredients: 7
• Yields: 4 cups tomato sauce

ingredients

• about 2 pounds tomatoes (peeled if desired, cored and halved, quartered, or cut into 1-inch cubes to measure 4 cups)
• 1 large walla walla onion, peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks (or any sweet onion such as Mayan, Vidalia, Maui, or our very own Oregon-grown Hermiston Sweets, etc.)
• 1⁄2 cup coarsely chopped basil (basil was omitted ^read recipe Intro)
• 8 -10 garlic cloves, peeled
• about 1/4 cup olive oil
• about 1/2 teaspoon salt
• about 1/4 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper

directions

1. Prepare the tomatoes as desired. If you are using [cherry] tomatoes, simply remove the stems as there is no need to slice them. Place the tomatoes in a large roasting pan, jelly-roll pan, or any baking sheet with sides. Add the onion, (basil) and garlic.
2. You can crowd the vegetables together, but don’t go beyond a single layer. Drizzle on a bit of olive oil, and then sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste. Roast in a preheated 375 to 450 degree oven (the hotter the oven, the shorter the roasting time) until the tomatoes are turning a deep golden brown on their skins. Depending on your oven temperature, that will take anywhere from 20 minutes to about 90 minutes.
3. When done, they will have collapsed and look quite wrinkled. Alternatively, consider roasting the vegetables over indirect heat on your grill, with the lid on. The person who submitted this recipe states: "I have a wood pellet-fed grill which provides a wonderful smoky flavor to the vegetables.
4. Remove the roasting pan from the oven or grill and let the vegetables cool. With a metal spatula or wide, flat-sided wooden spatula, stir and scrape the cooled tomatoes to dissolve all of the cooked-on bits of food.
5. At this point, consider your options for freezing: After roasting, pluck all of the skin off the tomato flesh (it comes off easily). Place it in a blender or food processor along with a healthy glug of the liquid from the roasting pan.
6. Blend on high until the skin is a puree. Stir this mixture back into the vegetables before refrigerating or freezing.
7. Note on peeling tomatoes: To remove the tomato skins before roasting, bring a large pot of water to a boil. Cut a shallow “x” in the bottom of each tomato.
8. Blanch them in the boiling water for about 30 seconds (just until the skin begins to peel away), then remove with a slotted spoon and run under cold water to cool. Peel the skins off the tomatoes, then core and cut into halves, quarters or 1-inch chunks and proceed with recipe.
9. To freeze: Ladle the sauce into freezer containers or resealable plastic freezer bags, leaving about 1-inch head space. Let cool completely, then close and freeze.