Lately there has been a growing problem in the Hein household. Too many tomatoes! Our garden is delivering a new tomato every day. In addition to our spectacular crop, my parents’ tomato garden is producing at least 3 tomatoes every day. Combined, that’s a lot of tomatoes. So many that I’ve started pawning them out to friends, neighbors and co-workers!
This weekend I carved out two hours dedicated to using up at least two pounds of tomatoes. How? Homemade marinara sauce. I found a recipe in my Betty Crocker cookbook that I was able to modify to use up the majority of my tomatoes.
Here is my modified recipe:
- 2- 2 ½ lbs of whole fresh tomatoes (instead of 2 14.5 herbed diced tomatoes)
- 1 medium onion chopped
- 2 tablespoon pre-chopped garlic (instead of 8 gloves chopped garlic)
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 teaspoon sugar (instead of 2 teaspoons)
- 1 ½ teaspoons dried basil leaves
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano leaves
- 1 teaspoon dried parsley (new addition since I like parsley)
- 2 teaspoon pepper (one more teaspoon that the original recipe because we like pepper)
- ½ teaspoon salt
First dice up your onion, then your tomatoes. This way your chopping board doesn’t get full of tomato juice. I unfortunately, did tomatoes first and had to do a little cleaning before I was able to cut the onion.
You want the whole tomato so don’t get rid of the seeds or the “guts”. Place diced tomatoes in a large pot. Add in the diced onion and remaining ingredients. Heat to a boiling and then reduce to low. Cover and simmer for 45 minutes. Let cool before placing in storage containers to refrigerate or freeze.
The Final Product!
The result? I’m well stocked for pasta sauce. Now I just have to figure what else to make in bulk with the remaining tomatoes! Any recommendations?
Uncharted 