This recipe packs in all the flavor density of peak season, farm fresh tomatoes, with time saving tricks to peel the tomatoes with a parboil, followed by a chop and stew, which reduces the simmer time to just over 1 hour. Use that time to roast your veggies for a lasagna, and cook your noodles, or in my case to roast and scoop up a spaghetti squash, to toss into the sauce as soon as its ready, and while they are both hot!
This recipe prepares about 4 cups, the size of a large jar from the market.
What you'll use from your bag:7 medium tomatoes
1 Red onion, finely diced
1/2 jalapeño, diced, or the entire thing if you like it hot
What else you'll need:
4 cloves of garlic, diced
1 Tbs Tomato paste (they make this in a tube now, so you don't have to waste the entire can)
1 tsp sea salt, fine
1/2 tsp black pepper, the fresher ground the better
5 cups veggie broth
2 Tbs olive or avocado oil
1/2 lemon (for the juice)
1 Tbs red wine vinegar, or soured red wine (you know, the kind you've left open too long)
at the end:
3/4 cup fresh basil (packed, because you can never have too much basil in tomato sauce)
1/3 cup fresh oregano (oregano form the farm is incredibly aromatic, highly recommended)
1/3 cup fresh cilantro
First, fill a large soup pot with about 6 cups of water
Take all of your tomatoes, and carve Xs into the butt of them, where they come to a little point. This will serve to allow the water to loosen the skin from the flesh of the tomato, and make an easy starting point to peel. The skin tends to slide off when little coaxing after a light boil.
Add the X'd tomatoes into the water, and bring to a boil, and allow to boil for about 2 minutes. This is softening the tomatoes and loosening the skin at the same time and will reduce the overall cook time in the later step.
When removed from the water, the skin tends to look like this, and easily peels and slides off, reducing a lot of prep time. You can keep these skins for broth, salads, or compost.
Next, heat your saucepan and prepare your vegetables
It's important not to use stainless steel with high-acidic dishes like tomato sauce, so for this I am using ceramic covered cast iron (Le Creuset). It also makes for MUCH easier clean up. Heat the oil in the pan, and add your finely diced onions and garlic, sauté, and after 2 minutes add the jalapeño.
Take your peeled tomatoes and chop them into at least 6 pieces, and toss them in with the sauté, allowing them to scorch, and stir them once or twice. While they scorch, whisk the tomato paste and vinegar into the vegetable broth, and once the tomatoes are scorched on all sides, pour the broth mixture into the
rest.
Bring to a low boil, and immediately drop down to a simmer, and let simmer for 1.5 hours, stirring occasionally.
Then, you'll add the herbs
Towards the end, say in the last 15 minutes, start to chop your basil, oregano and cilantro. Toss them
into the sauce and stir evenly and allow to cook with the remaining time. The sauce should look more like sauce and less like chopped tomatoes as they have broken down, the liquid should also be substantially reduced.
Allow to cool, and keep in the fridge for up to 2 weeks, or enjoy immediately!
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