Homemade Italian Tomato Sauce Featured for This Week's Potluck

Well the garden finally blessed us with enough tomatoes to prepare the first pot of homemade italian tomato sauce. We ran out of canned tomato sauce from last year in March so the wait has been long but well worth it. I have prepared the feature dish for the past three potluck Sundays but I have yet to post any recipes. I'm not generally known as the chef of the group and I don't tend to follow any sort of recipe when I cook. Even so, I'll do my best to share my recipe for homemade Italian tomato sauce in the hopes that others will be able to share this wonderful dish with their families. [gallery] "All I can say is is WOW!" ~Penny Collins This recipe will make enough sauce to fill a typical dutch oven about 1/2 to 3/4 full. That's about as precise as I can be.

Ingredients:
• About 30 tomatoes. The meatier the better. Italian roma tomatoes are the best. We are growing some Italian orange zebra tomatoes this year in our garden and they are great for sauce.
• About 4 medium onions
• About 4 cloves of garlic
• Italian tomato sauce spices to taste (oregano, thyme, basil, whatever else you like--fresh if you have it)
• Olive oil enough to cover the bottom of the pan
• 1/4 stick of butter
• 1/2 cup red wine (optional)
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• 2 small cans of tomato paste
• Love (I have to add this for Carol's benefit)

Place the tomatoes into a large pot of water to blanch the tomatoes so that you can remove the skin easily. Since Carol wants me to make enough Italian tomato sauce to can and last us until next season, we're looking at purchasing a Deluxe Squeezo Strainer to make the process of removing the skin and seeds easier and faster.

While the tomatoes are blanching, chop up the onions and garlic. Place enough olive oil into a heated saute pan and saute the garlic, onions and Italian tomato sauce spices until golden and tender. Then remove the pan from the heat and set aside.

Remove the tomatoes from the pot into a colander, put the pot onto the stove on low heat and place the garlic and onions into the pot.

Remove the skin from the tomatoes, core them and squeeze the seeds from them and place all of the scraps into a sieve which you have placed over a large bowl. Place the meat of the tomatoes into the pot.

Once you have finished preparing the tomatoes, using a pestle, extract the juice from the remnants of the tomatoes you placed into the sieve and pour the juice into the pot. Add the tomato paste, red wine, salt and pepper and butter to the pot.

Set the sauce to cook on low heat and stir often. Let it cook for about 4 hours or until it has reduced by about 1/2 and has the desired consistency.

Hopefully you will be able to follow this recipe. I have, on occasion, given private sauce-making lessons.

Serve the sauce over your favorite pasta and enjoy!