ALMOST EVERY YEAR, as local tomatoes come to market, I make a late summer marinara sauce that I place in my freezer that I use through the fall for my various Italian dishes (pizza and pasta).
It is a bit of an ordeal with hot water dunks to deskin the tomatoes and a stovetop simmer for a few hours to intensify the flavor, but if I intermingle the job with other tasks, it is usually a fun morning in my kitchen.
I almost invested in some glass freezer jars for this year but when my hardware store only had shoulder-type glass jars (not recommended for freezing) I shifted gears and bought a 4-pack of plastic containers. I know, I know. This is Martha Stewart’s approach to tomato stain removal with plastic containers. https://www.marthastewart.com/7692569/how-remove-tomato-stains-food-containers.
I finally located some Roma tomatoes at a garden center after a few unsuccessful attempts at visiting my various farmers' markets. I mixed Roma's with nice, big tomatoes as it seemed the thing to do. Why not? This attempt used 20 Roma's and 4 regular large tomatoes.
After my recipe research, I placed crisscross cuts on my tomatoes and submerged them in a pan of boiling water. It took me a good thirty minutes to get them ready for their next stage. A cold-water bath helped loosen the skin, but a paring knife was still needed to get them fully prepped.
Next, I added a chopped medium onion, 2 sliced carrots, 2 cloves of garlic, and a TBS of brown sugar to extra virgin olive oil and sauteed them in my Dutch oven pan on low heat for five minutes. I then added all the tomatoes and simmered the ingredients gently for a couple of hours under a slow bubble. I added a cup of chopped herbs from my garden (leaves of basil, thyme, and oregano) during the last fifteen minutes on the stove. I then added salt and ground pepper.
After an hour of rest, I plugged in my immersion blender and had at it - what a blast. I filled three 3.2-cup containers and placed them in the freezer.
Voila.
I'm making a homemade ham-veggie pizza tonight and now that I froze my sauce I'll have to go to my refrigerator which has a bottle of Newman's Own Marinara sauce. Thankfully!
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