Tomato Sauce

So after my last post, I had a few pounds of roma tomatoes left. More salsa? No. I tried something different. Tomato sauce!

It was kinda fun too!

First I flash boiled the tomatoes for about three minutes. Some of the smaller tomatoes' skins broke but that's ok. It makes one of the next steps easier.

Take them out and put them in a bowl of cold water and ice.

I did these in batches so after I put the boiled tomatoes in the cold water I immersed the next batch in the boiling water.

While the second batch boils, split the skin of the "cold water" tomatoes...

and then squish out the insides!!!!! That was fun!!!

Discard the skin and put the rest in a strainer over an empty bowl. Drain as much liquid as possible.  I had to empty the bowl four times.

I got a full colander full of tomatoes. Then I pureed the heck out of them in a food processor!

The next part is kind of boring. I didn't want to make a full on pasta sauce because my BF and I have very different tastes. I like heavy garlic, some spinach, mushrooms, onions or bell peppers... or any combo of these. He likes... meat. So a neutral sauce it is. To be dressed up at a later time!

I heated mine up, mostly for tasting purposes, and added some parsley, garlic, salt, pepper, etc. Whatever was in the spice rack and tasted good.

Then I thought... can? Or.... FREEZE!

I saw this somewhere while looking for some ideas (don't ask me where I can't remember for the life of me!) and thought, for two people, who microwave frozen ravioli in a tupperware for lunch a few times a week, this is perfect!!

I froze and bagged the cubes and LOVE it! I made four trays worth plus a little tub I wanted to try too.

A man at our local farmer's market sells his this way... actually, that's his container with the label cleaned off!

Either way, I love it. It tastes so much fresher than jarred, we can spruce it up and three cubes is more than enough for my tupperware tortellini lunch!

Another bonus, we don't have his and her's pasta sauce jars sitting half full in the fridge for two months collecting... who knows.

I'm thinking a three pepper pasta sauce is in my near future! Mmmmm over penne and shrimp... oh my!