Pick, roast & blend

A better way of preparing tomatoes

Roma tomatoes are the ideal variety, since they are a paste tomato containing few seeds, but any variety will work just as well.

For each batch of roasted tomato sauce, you will need:

• Approximately 25 Roma tomatoes. This number will vary with the variety used. Essentially, you will need enough tomatoes, halved, to cover a large baking sheet, cut side down.
• Two cloves of garlic, peeled.
• Half a medium-sized yellow onion.
• Extra virgin olive oil.
• Coarse salt and fresh pepper, to taste.

To make the sauce:

• Pre-heat oven to 190°C
• Wash and core the tomatoes.
• Using a sharp paring knife, remove the core and stem, if present, from the tomatoes.
• Slice the tomatoes in half and place, cut side down, on a baking sheet or disposable aluminium oven liner.
• Tuck peeled garlic cloves in among the tomatoes.
• Slice the onion in half, peel, and then slice. Separate onion pieces and scatter among tomatoes.
• Drizzle all with olive oil.
• Sprinkle salt and pepper over all.
• Roast in the oven for approximately 40 minutes, or until tomatoes are soft and skins begin to brown.
• Transfer roasted tomatoes in batches to a blender and pulse until the sauce has reached the desired consistency.
• Transfer sauce into freezer bags or containers, marked clearly with the date and contents. Freeze bags horizontally on a cookie sheet. Once the bags are frozen, store them in the most convenient way in your freezer.

This sauce can be adopted for use in pasta recipes, Mexican cooking, or simply spread over a fresh crust of Italian bread, to be enjoyed during a snowstorm. This sauce is exceptionally good when fresh or dried herbs are added before eating.