Homemade Tomato Sauce

It's been a journey, but I have continued to  move our family  in the direction of more organic, nourishing foods.  Commonly referred to as the real food movement, my goal is to make food for my family from ingredients that are easily recognizable and have been consumed for many years.  

I've made homemade tomato soup before, it wasn't hard at all, but the peeling and seeding was time consuming.  Come to find out, peeling and seeding are also unnecessary!  Before I did a lot of research on foods, I used commercially canned tomatoes constantly.  I really didn't know there was any other way.  But, now I know and I can't bring myself to feed commercially canned tomatoes tomatoes to my boys.  

The process for this sauce is so easy.  It's truly a shame that tomatoes aren't a winter fruit, this would be a great way to warm your house in the cold months.  But, alas, they come in summer and one must make sacrifices!  For this batch of goodness, I quartered tomatoes, chopped a bit of kale and basil and threw in some baby carrots with some onion and garlic.  I covered everything in foil and baked at 325 for about two hours.  I can fit four pans in my oven at a time, so that's what I did.

After roasting, everything was soft and easily chopped up in the food processor.  You can make it as chunky or smooth as you'd like.  I actually wound up pouring off some of the juice to keep my sauce thick (don't throw it away, though, you can use it to boil pasta or make soup), it's all about personal preference.

I don't know how to properly can, so I just store my jars in the fridge or freezer.  Yes, you can freeze glass canning jars, just don't heat them when they are cold or they will burst.  Now, I have plenty of tomato sauce that I can use all year long, straight over pasta, or in freezer batch cooking recipes like this.   My kids also love when I add a bit of chicken broth to the sauce and serve it to them as soup!