Oven Roasted Tomato Sauce

This is an easy basic sauce and can be used as pasta sauce, but it is also a great starting point for other dishes such as Ratatouille or a meat ragu.   This makes about 2 quarts or enough for 2 pounds of pasta.   We make many batches each summer and use it all year long.   When our freezer is full, we can some also.

Ingredients:

5 pounds ripe Roma or similar tomatoes cut in half or quarters but not skinned or seeded
2 medium carrots roughly diced
1 large onion roughly diced
2 tsp sea salt
1 tsp course ground pepper
2-3 cloves of garlic
1 cup fresh basil leaves washed
1/2 cup good olive oil
1/2 cup Traditional Method Red Wine Vinegar

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350. Put tomatoes, carrots and onions in a large baking pan.   Drizzle with oil, add salt and pepper. Bake at 350 degrees for  1 1/2 hours.   Stir the roasting pan every 30 minutes.   You want to see some caramelization and concentration of the tomatoes.   On the last stirring slip in the garlic cloves to cook; you are doing this later so they do not burn.

Remove the pan from the oven and allow it to cool for 20 minutes.   Add the basil and vinegar.   Stir and then puree in a food processor.   This should make 2 quarts.   We store it in Mason jars in the freezer, but remember to leave the level down a bit for expansion when you freeze it.   If you want to store the sauce in your pantry,  you can use the canning method,  but follow the rules that apply to your altitude and for low pH processing.   For us at low elevations that is only  10 minutes of processing.