Homemade Tomato Sauce

Over the past several years, I've made some significan changes in the food I serve my family, but I know those changes haven't been enough.  In theory, is seems as if serving fresh foods to your family would be easy; the reality is that it's not as easy as it seems.  Everyone is so busy that preparing home-cooked meals is really a challenge.  It's my intent to present healthful food that will be easy for anyone to prepare.  Today, I'm putting up a recipe for homemade tomato sauce that is simply delicious!  I used it today to make spaghetti sauce.  So here's the recipe:

Homemade Tomato Sauce
1 pound of tomatoes, halved
1 yellow onion, quartered
1 head of garlic, unpeeled
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 teaspoons dried thyme
2 teaspoons dried basil
2 teaspoons dried oregano
1 to 2 tablespoons water
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat the oven to 275 degrees F.

Placed the halved tomatoes, onions, and garlic cloves on a baking sheet.  Drizzle with half the olive oil and sprinkle with the herbs, salt, and pepper.  Toss to coat well.   Place the tomatoes cut-side down.

Cook for 2 hours, turning the tomatoes after 1 hour.  NOTE:  This is the point where an adjustment might be needed.  (For example, my oven cooks a bit slow, so I turned the heat up to 285 degrees F. for the second hour.)  After the second hour, remove the baking sheet and set aside the unpeeled garlic.  Place the rest of the vegetables and the pan juices in food processor or blender.  Add a tablespoon or two of water to the pan to scrape up any bits of flavor and add to the food processor.  Squeeze the roasted garlic into the food processor also.  Give the vegetables in the blender a drizzle of olive oil (I just circled the perimeter of the food processor a time or two).

Pulse the mixture untile chunky, or puree until smooth (which is the option I always choose), depending upon desired consistency.  Taste the sauce and season with additional salt and pepper if needed.

At this point, after the sauce has cooled, it can be placed in freezer containers for future use.  I must admit that I made a large batch; I actually used 7 pounds of tomatoes, so the recipe can easily be multiplied.  The orginal recipe makes approximately 1 1/4 cups of sauce (my 7 pounds of tomatoes made about 14 cups of sauce).

Happy saucing!