Roasted Tomato Sauce

This is a simple, easy and very tasty sauce. Tomatoes develop a wonderful rich flavor when they are roasted to the point of blistering or even get a little char on them. Serve this thick chunky sauce simply as it is over pasta or add a side of meatballs, pancetta or sausage. We like just the roasted tomatoes over pasta with nothing more than a nice hit of a good high grade olive oil and a sprinkle of pecorino cheese. 

This also makes a great bruschetta topping on grilled country bread.

Ingredients - 

2 lbs of ripe homegrown or multi colored cherry, grape or heirloom tomatoes

5-7 cloves of garlic – chopped

Rosemary – 2 sprigs, leaves pulled off and roughly chopped

Zest from one lemon

Salt and Pepper to taste

1/3 cup+ Extra virgin olive oil 

Freshly Grated Pecorino Cheese

Pasta of your choice. We like this with long fusilli

If you are using good ripe homegrown tomatoes, cut them into 1½ inch chunks. If using Roma tomatoes, cut them into quarters lengthwise.If using grape of cherry tomatoes, leave them whole

Put them in a rectangular casserole dish with the garlic, rosemary, lemon zest and salt and pepper.

Pour about 1/3 of a cup of extra virgin olive oil over the tomato mixture and stir together.

Bake at 410 degrees for 45 minutes uncovered.

Every 10 minutes, take the sauce out of the oven and stir the tomatoes.

You want the tomatoes to get blistered and collapse but not dried out, so keep an eye on them. Add  a little water and olive oil if needed.

When done, stir it again and serve over pasta with the grated cheese. You can also dump the roasted tomatoes into a bowl and use an immersion blender to adjust how chunky you want your sauce to be. 

You can also play with the ingredients and use oregano instead of rosemary, use more or less garlic, or fresh basil. If you use fresh basil, don’t add it until the sauce is out of the oven. 

Did a complete scarpetta!  Look it up :)