Multo bene!

When I planted six tomato plants in the spring I promised Lance that I would make him some homemade marinara sauce once we had enough tomatoes. After eating sliced tomatoes every lunch for quite a while, putting them in almost all of our dinners, and making some excellent fire roasted salsa, we had enough tomatoes for the marinara. :) I took my recipe from my Joy of Cooking cookbook.

I had enough tomatoes that I made a double batch so that I could use some today and freeze the rest for the cold days of winter that are coming.

First, I chopped two carrots, two sticks of celery (including leaves), two onions, and two bell peppers (from my garden, too!). I sauteed this in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil for around ten minutes.

Then I added 4 minced cloves of garlic, a 1/2 cup of chopped basil leaves, and a sprig of rosemary. I sauteed again for another couple of minutes.

While the veggies sauteed I seeded and chopped 5 1/2 pounds of fresh tomatoes. Yum!

I added the tomatoes, 2 tbls tomato paste, a few tsps of kosher salt, and about 10 grates of freshly ground pepper.

Then I simmered all of this for around 20 minutes. During this time I cleaned up a bit around the kitchen and had to dodge an apron-eating baby on the floor. (Probably the most difficult part of this recipe - he moves a lot and is easy to trip over!)

When it was done, it looked something like this:

Although it tasted really good, it looked kinda funky. (Who wants to eat veggies that have had most of the color sauteed out of them?) So I decided to puree it with my handy-dandy hand blender. (One of the best Mother's Day gifts I ever got!) The finished product was pretty smooth, but still very homemade-looking and tasting! (Side note: I forgot one one important ingredient - fresh lemon juice & lemon zest. Lemon makes an tomato dish taste more 'tomatoey'. I often add some to canned sauce to help it taste more 'fresh'.)

I served it with spaghetti and meatballs. (I didn't make the meatballs - this time.)
I think everyone enjoyed dinner! Multo bene!

Besides learning how to make homemade marinara today, I also learned how to make animated GIFs. (Yeah, about 8 years behind the curve, but still a fun thing to know!)

Current song in my head: If You Chance to Meet a Frown (Primary Song)