Newbie Gardener + Wannabe Italian Cook Makes Fresh Tomato Sauce & Lives to Tell About It

Ok, so maybe a fresh tomato sauce using raw tomatoes isn't the most original idea in the world, but when you're used to making it with canned tomatoes it feels new and exciting. Made even better when you can use ingredients from your own garden!

This is our first full year in our house (read: first full year with outdoor space) and our first real attempt at growing a garden. Last year we experimented with some herbs, jalapenos and one or two tomato plants, but we didn't get them into the ground until very late July. Not ideal for the Northeast. This year we spent a lot of time and money on our yard from cutting down dead trees to planting (and transplanting) flowers and bushes to building (or trying to) a proper vegetable garden. More on our gardening adventures in a different post, but to sum it up quickly, a lot of what we planted died.

Thus the one big success, our tomato plants, are our pride and joy. To keep up with the bounty I decided to try my hand at making tomato sauce. Let me be clear, this was a brave attempt on my part. I have zero Italian blood, and yet my mother-in-law was born in Italy, so the bar was set very high, to put it lightly. (And no, I haven't had a chance to cook side-by-side with her yet to learn.) But with a glass of wine in hand (it builds confidence and makes everything taste better, right?), I gave it a go.

I probably did a lot of things "wrong," but as I've mentioned in other posts, I don't usually follow a single recipe carefully. I piecemealed some suggestions together and then just did what worked for us. And I'm very pleased to report that A) my husband loved it, and B) the tomatoes, onion, parsley, oregano, thyme, and basil were from our garden!

(A visual summary of the cooking process)

Ingredients:

• Tomatoes: I used Roma plum tomatoes, a few Big Boy tomatoes, and a few beefsteak tomatoes. I chose to embrace the variety because I didn't have enough plum tomatoes to make a sauce and I wanted to use up what I had before anything spoiled. I ended up with a little over 5.5 lb of tomatoes.
• Herbs: I used flat-leaf parsley (~ 1 Tbsp, finely chopped), Italian oregano (~2-3 Tbsp, finely chopped), basil (~3 Tbsp, julienned), and thyme (~1.5 Tbsp, finely chopped) because I had these growing in the backyard and I personally like the flavor and aroma of a lot of herbs. Many prefer to have a simpler sauce that just lets the tomatoes "speak" for themselves - to each their own!
• Onion: This was an exciting addition to the garden and I harvested these little onions for the first time for this sauce. They're some kind of yellowish onion, but truthfully I can't tell you more than that. I probably used about 1/2-3/4 cup finely diced onion.
• Garlic: About 4-5 cloves finely chopped - we like it garlicky. We'll be planting some soon so in the future I hope to use homegrown garlic.
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil: About 2 Tbsp; just enough to cook up the onion and garlic.
• Sugar: About a tsp, maybe a little less; just enough to cut some of the tartness from the tomatoes (often I'll use a little grated carrot for the same effect, but I didn't have any on hand).
• Red Chili Pepper Flakes: About 2 tsp; only add if you like a little heat.
• Salt and pepper: To your liking.

Directions (corresponding with the pictures above):

1. Wash your produce. Score the tomatoes by cutting a shallow X at the bottom (some do it at the top near the stem/core) with a paring knife. 
2. Drop in batches in a pot of boiling water and transfer to an ice bath once you see the skin start to wrinkle and peel away from the tomato (~30 seconds - 2 minutes). Peel off the tomato skins, dice the tomatoes into chunks, and cut out the core. (I chose to cook the seeds and jelly-like membranes of the tomatoes to add more flavor to my sauce, but you can remove those as well if you want.) 
3. In a large and heavy pot (I chose a cast iron enamel dutch oven) cook the tomatoes and juices over medium/low heat. I cooked the Big Boy and beefsteak tomatoes first (about 25-30 minutes) because they have more water in them than plum tomatoes, which are more mealy or pasty in texture. 
4. Then I added the plum tomatoes and cooked them all together for another 25-30 minutes, until the juices evaporated and the sauce became thicker. I alternated between covering the pot and leaving it exposed, but tried to keep it at a simmer vs full boil.
5. In lieu of a food mill, I used a sieve and wooden spoon over a bowl to separate out some of the tougher "meat" of the tomato. I personally like a chunky sauce, so I added back in most of the flesh and kept the seeds, but I did remove any harder, stringer pieces or parts of the core that I may have missed in step 2.
6. Just showing off my onions here.
7. In the same pot (tomatoes are removed at this point with step 5), I added the olive oil and onions, cooking for 3-5 minutes and then added the garlic. Stir frequently and ensure the heat isn't too high so you don't burn the mixture, especially the garlic. This may be a good spot to add some salt and pepper for flavoring.
8. Add the tomatoes back to the pot and mixed it all together. I added a dash of sugar at this step - I wanted to give the tomatoes time to develop their own sweetness first via cooking. Cook for a while at a low simmer (~10-15 minutes) and then add the herbs and red chili pepper flakes to the sauce. 
9. Continue cooking the sauce and adjusting the seasonings to your preference. I probably cooked it another 15 minutes or so, but this can be up to you - some cook it a total of 20 minutes, others 90 minutes.

Then I let it cool, poured it into a jar, and saved it for tonight's dinner:

(Of course I had to add some Parmesan cheese. I can eat that stuff by the spoonful!)

And there you have it! Next time if I'm feeling really brave I'll cook it for my mother-in-law!