Friday, August 21, 2009

Homemade marinara

When I came home I ventured out to the garden and was a bit shocked to find this:

I picked 50 ripe tomatoes off of three tomato plants. Yes, 50. In fact, there are another dozen or so that I could have picked but didn't because it started raining on me. I hate seeing food go to waste so I decided to try and make a dent in the pile by making homemade marinara sauce. I am a self-proclaimed marinara and pizza sauce snob. In my opinion, so many tomato-based sauces are way over spiced and that is all you end up tasting. I found a recipe from trusty old Food Network and I am not kidding when I say it is one of the very best things I have ever made. I modified the recipe to use fresh tomatoes. Basically the same process, but I had to take the skin off of the tomatoes by boiling them for a few minutes first.

I topped some penne with the sauce and added big chunks of fresh mozzerella and it was sooooo good. (Yes, it was good enough that I actually took a picture-- I know I'm a total nerd.)


I froze the leftover sauce in freezer bags and will definitely be using it again soon. Try it!

Quick Marinara Sauce
From Food Network Kitchens

Ingredients
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 medium onion, diced (about 3 tablespoons)
4 cloves garlic, sliced
3 (28-ounce) cans whole, peeled, tomatoes, roughly chopped
3 sprigs fresh thyme
1 small bunch fresh basil, leaves chopped
2 teaspoons kosher salt (use a lot less if using table salt)
Freshly ground black pepper

Directions
Heat the oil in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Saute the onion and garlic, stirring, until lightly browned, about 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes with about half of their juices (discarding the rest), the herb sprigs and basil and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered for about 25 to 30 minutes or until thickened.

7 comments:

Grant and Taryn Layton said...

Are you saying I'm a nerd for taking food pictures?! haha. It looks amazing! I definitely need to try it. Keep the recipes and food pictures coming, I love it! Glad you came home to a garden full of good stuff. We came home to a storm destroyed garden and are lucky to get a few tomatoes now :(

LudvigsonFamily said...

Yummy! I will definitely try the recipe out and let you know what I think.

Shawna said...

Oh my heck Jenny--that is insane!! I cannot believe you got that many tomatoes..they look so big and yummy! And that pasta looks amazing--totally making my mouth water!

Sam and Kristol said...

You are awesome! It looks so good. Thanks for the recipe.

Mark and Lachelle said...

Holy crap, that's a lot of tomatoes!!! My mouth is watering right now! I love tomatoes! And I'll definitely be tryin that marinara sauce!

Beth said...

You are quite the cook Jenny! We'd love to come swimming. I've been wanting to take a break from all the happenings this last month, but you were in NC. We just moved to Orem...so we are really close to you now. Let's get together soon.

Courtney said...

Holy Cow that's a ton of tomatoes! That reciepe looks good, too bad i'm lazy.