3 Day Roasted Tomato Sauce

I do not know anything about tomatoes. I know I prefer them chopped tiny and hidden in a wrap or pasta salad. I also know I love them cooked down and blitzed until you can pour them on top of pasta. And that is it. I don't eat them on sandwiches or chicken burgers. I have never grown them or cared to buy them. Basically - I know nothing about tomatos.


What I do know is I have always wanted to make my own tomato sauce. There is just something about those sauces that have been canned in a factory with dehydrated spices and what-not that I don't really like. So, when I was surfing around for some dinner inspiration - I found this recipe and gave it a try. You can find it here.

I used a combination of Roma, Grape and some other tomato that was labelled "sweet"

I roasted it in the oven for the first 30 min

covered and then decided that it needed to reduce more so I roasted it uncovered for the next 30 min.

After 60 min in the oven I let it cool for about a half an hour before transferring it to the blender.

I was a bit disappointed with the color of this sauce. I would have liked a much redder sauce. It had a great roasted garlic flavor but lacked in the tomato department (ironically). Perhaps a bit of tomato paste would help with both the depth of flavor and the color. I was happy with how creamy this sauce looked and tasted. I did add water to the sauce as I blended it until I found the right consitency. This only made 3 cups of sauce for me, not 4. It also needed a bit more of a zing for my taste. Perhaps a shot of hot sauce, squeeze of lemon juice or maybe even double the amount of fresh basil added right before serving.


Speaking of serving, this is not really called "3 Day" Roasted Tomato Sauce. I only called it that because it took me 3 days before I had the chance to eat it! The excitment of being a realtor... you never know when you'll get a call from someone "needing" to see a property right away. So directly after blending this sauce I headed out for some very unplanned work. It was close to the same story the next day until finally on Day 3 I was able to make what was possibly the best chicken I have ever had.




A big believer in "if it isn't broken, don't fix it" method of cooking - I took some chicken breast and coated it in some Shake and Bake. For years some test kitchen somewhere has been testing and tasting Shake and Bake coating. It is delicious, and easy, and perfectly balanced. Why recreate something that is already perfect?



Okay, so Shake and Baked chicken breast, seared in a hot pan for 4 min each side. I then spooned a nice helping of the 3 Day Roasted Tomato Sauce on top and covered with sliced mozzarella. Into the oven for 30 min more.

Served with pasta and more sauce and a piece of foccacia bread. The sauce was quite good, but I would still prefer a bit more zing to it.

I do think it was a bit costly this time of year (late Oct) to be making this sauce. However, I am going to try very hard to remember in the spring to plant some tomato plants and herbs, harvest my own ingredients and make huge quantaties of this sauce which can be frozen or canned for the winter months.

I will let you know how that all goes.....

CC