I actually made this dish several weeks ago and promised I'd post it on the blog but then my surgery came up and well ... you know what they say about good intentions.
It's also the easiest darn recipe you've ever seen for something that is so damn good.
You ready?
- Take whatever tomatoes you have and throw them on a baking sheet.
- Then, add as many garlic cloves as you want.
- Drizzle with olive oil, and add salt, pepper, and dried oregano. As much or as little as you want. This is your sauce.
- When you've done that, throw it in an oven pre-heated to 400 degrees and let bake for 40 minutes, plus or minus. (I say plus or minus because it's my experience that one oven does not cook the same as another. The oven in our old house - a KitchenAid - would cook this properly in 30 minutes. The one in our apartment isn't quite as good.)
- When you remove the tomatoes from the oven, put everything in a food processor and blend to your heart's content.
That's it. You're done.
If you want a really smoky sauce, I recommend cooking a bit longer until there is some char on the tomatoes and garlic. Sometimes I'm really in the mood for a more robust sauce so I go this route. Sometimes I don't use oregano, instead throwing fresh basil in the food processor. I've also been known to throw in some red pepper flakes if I'm feeling particularly adventurous.
One thing I've found is this is a particular good recipe for fall and winter when the availability of fresh, succulent tomatoes isn't as great. The roasting covers a multitude of sins for less flavorful tomatoes that you find in major grocery stores during the off-season. Here in CA, we generally have access to good, fresh tomatoes well into the autumn because of the heat we get until November. In fact, when we lived at our house still, our last tomato harvest took place in late October. This is also a great recipe if you have some tomatoes that look like they're past their prime. They might not be so good in a recipe requiring fresh tomatoes, but here, they're put to great use.
I really hope you like this recipe as much as I do. Between this and the other sauce recipes I have, I haven't bought pasta sauce at the store in years. There's really no reason to when it's so darn easy and tastes so much better.
