Roasted Tomato Pizza and Marinara Sauce

Last year, I made a ton of salsa, but not enough marinara sauce. This year, I am stocking up on both, and since my basil plants are doing better than ever, my goal is working out really well for me! Last week, when my aunt gave me a bushel of tomatoes (I had to look up how much a bushel was ...  it's about 50 pounds!), let's just say I was a little overwhelmed on canning day so I wasn't paying attention to any sort of measurement. I was simply cooking and processing as fast as I could! After 8 quarts and 13 pints later ... tomatoes were all taken care of! It was a crazy morning.

The sauces that I made this year has been some of my favorite. Mow that my tomato-craze has cooled down and I had only a tomatoes left in the fridge and a few on my plants, it was finally time to put a recipe down on paper before the year goes by and I have to start from scratch again next year.

On my huge canning day, I blanched a peeled all of my tomatoes for the marinara sauce because I didn't have the oven space to roast them. However, since my mom got me on the kick of roasting my tomatoes for my salsa, I have been dying to try it out for my marinara sauce. I'm sure of all the purists out there would cringe that I leave the skins on, but the roasting flavor is simply amazing and it's half the work! I also doubt they would be able to tell the difference.

In the past, I have always used this amazing Italian Seasoning that I get from a local co-op. Knowing that all seasonings are so different in taste, I didn't want to go that route this year. I wanted this years sauces to really have that garden fresh taste so I wanted to use only fresh herbs for seasoning and I'm so glad I did. These beautiful tomatoes are still the star of sauce but the fresh herbs really make them shine!

Roasted Tomato Pizza Sauce

Makes 6 cups or 3 pints

4 lbs tomatoes
1 lg onion
1 lg green pepper
10 cloves garlic
1/3 c tomato paste
1/4 c basil
2 T oregano
2 T rosemary
1/2 t salt
1/2 t pepper

Rough cut tomatoes, onions and green peppers. I will leave them in 1 inch pieces. Place on a baking sheet with garlic cloves and cook at 400º for 30 minutes. They will start to be shriveling up a little by their skins.

Once they are out of the oven, put the vegetable mixture in a colander and lightly press them with a spoon. This releases a lot of the tomatoes excess liquid that will make your sauce soupy.

Next, place the tomato mixture  in a bowl with the your fresh and delicious herbs and mix with a immersion blender until all the vegetables are puréed. Taste and salt and pepper to your liking and enjoy!

If you are planning on canning them, simply put the sauce in a pot and bring it to boil. Then, divide it into sterilized pint or quart mason jars leaving 1/2 in of head space. Put the jars in a canner and keep them covered with at least 1 inch of boiling water. Process the jars in a boiling-water bath for 15 minutes for pints and 20 minutes for quarts.