Garden Fresh Tomato Sauce

We have an overabundance of tomatoes in our garden.  We pick them and then they seem to multiply tenfold. As delicious as it is, I do not think my stomach can handle any more fresh tomato toast. We decided to make and jar our own tomato sauce to enjoy ourselves or give away as gifts. It came out awesome, so I wanted to share our simple recipe here with you, in case you have a million tomatoes just like us. 

We made a quick pit stop at Target to get a couple of things that we needed: mason jars, a pot, and one onion. The rest of the staff was hand picked from our garden or already on hand. 

What went into the sauce: 

tomatoes

one onion

two shallots

an entire small container of chopped garlic

tons of basil

thyme 

oregano 

white wine

olive oil 

salt & pepper

Method of Prep:

Chop the onion, shallot, and garlic and then sautee in a large pot with olive oil. Next you can remove the skins doing a tomato concasse which would involve cutting a small x on the bottom of the tomato, boiling them until the skin starts to peel, placing in an ice bath, and then removing the skin. Because of time however, James just removed the skins with a paring knife. 

Slice and dice the tomatoes and add them to the sauteed vegetables. And now you wait. Let the tomatoes simmer and reduce down into a sauce. Chop the herbs and add them to the sauce. To speed up the process James used an immersion blender to combine everything together. Continue to taste, and add salt and pepper as necessary.

In another pot, bring water to a boil. Place mason jars in boiling water to sterilize. Do this just as you are about to jar the sauce. We filled each jar until they were just about full, then put the tops on and placed the jars upside down. This helps with the sealing process. Make sure that you fill the jars straight out of the boiling water - this is a critical step in sealing the jars. 

And there we have it! Our very own absolutely delicious sauce. It is super simple - the fresh ingredients do all the work, all you need is the time and patience to let it do its thing. The longer you reduce it the thicker your sauce is going to be. 

You can now store your jars in the fridge or at room temperature. I am excited to give a couple of these away as gifts, and enjoy the rest with some nice fresh pasta and crusty bread. A perfect Sunday night dinner. 

xo. Casey