Well, yesterday, I did it. Completely without a recipe and without even researching beforehand. I invented this all on my own, and Hubby and I both think it's pretty darn good!
I started with about 4½-5 pounds of tomatoes. I bought the most affordable ones there were at our market, because, well, this was an experiment after all and I didn't want to waste too much money if it turned out to be a total fail.
Preheating the oven to 400-degrees, I chopped them up and piled them into our largest enameled cast iron dutch oven.
I decided to mash them up a bit before popping them into the oven. In hindsight, I doubt this step was necessary, but since I did it, I am recounting it here.
3 hours later, this is what they looked like:
Next, I put the pan on top of the stove and started the process of simmering and stirring every 10-15 minutes. But first, I whipped out the stick blender and pureed it all. At this point, I also added about a half cup of vegetable stock (also homemade from scratch - we keep it in the freezer in ice cube size portions), because I wanted to loosen up the consistency a bit.
After a little while, it was time to add spices. I went with about 10 cloves of fresh garlic (minced), dried oregano, dried basil, salt, black pepper, a small amount of red pepper flakes, and a teaspoon of sugar.
After about another hour and a half of simmering and stirring, basically until I felt the garlic was cooked and starting to dissolve, I decided it was done. I gave it one more ride on the stick blender, and this was the final result:
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| (before the final blending) |
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| (after the final blending) |
Finally, we "packaged" it into old salsa jars that we had saved, and into the freezer they went. These are just the right size for a meal for just the two of us. :)
Now, I know that there are other ways to make sauce from total scratch, such as pureeing the tomatoes while raw and/or doing all of the cooking on the stove top (skipping the oven completely). This was just the way I chose to experiment, and it turned out quite well. I am sure I will try other methods in the future, but one thing is for sure....we will never (well, at least very rarely) buy prepared tomato sauce or canned tomatoes again. :)
As for the cost, this turned out to be approximately $5.00 for what amounts to about a jar and a half's worth of store-bought sauce....so it's a little more pricey, but we think well worth it.
