Friends & Family Series: Sofia & April's Roasted Tomato Sauce

Hi guys!  I'm on vacation right now so I've asked my friend's and family to step in while I'm away!  Each day that I am gone, I will be sharing a recipe from one of my friends or family members.  I started this project with no clear goals, I was just hoping to fill a few of the recipe gaps while I was away.  I received an overwhelming response from everyone, and I am truly honoured and excited to be able to share with you so many great recipes made by so many of my favourite people!  Please enjoy their recipes and be sure to leave them comments at the end of their posts!  
Sofia and I grew up together and hung out with the same group of friends when we were in High School.  We kept in touch through the years sharing our mutual love for recipes and photography. Sofia is now a professional photographer who specializes in wedding photography - she takes some AMAZING photographs. Be sure to check out her Facebook page and her website if you're looking to get some photos taken, planning a wedding (not only will she travel for your wedding she LOVES destination weddings) or if you'd simply want to check out her artistic photos (I really urge you to do this!).  A few years back she shared her family's recipe for Homemade Ravioli on the blog, so today she decided to share the recipe for Roasted Tomato Sauce that she created with her sister April! I can't wait for summer when I have fresh garden tomatoes to make this sauce with! 

Ingredients

-A selection of tomatoes. 10-20 depending on the size

-1 Full Garlic Head

-Anchovy Paste

-Salt 

-Pepper

-Olive Oil

-Basil

I have never been crazy about jarred or canned tomato sauce for my pastas so finding a fresh version was something I wanted to do for a while. It all started when I moved to Vancouver for a few months and lived with my sister April. Her friend Jen had a garden nearby with an endless supply of tomatoes for friends. At the end of the season instead of wasting all the unripened tomatoes they would pick them and ripen them by leaving them in newspaper in their kitchen. Once ripe they would make large batches of tomato sauce. April did the same as what else do you do with 50 tomatoes?

You can use whatever tomatoes you want for this recipe. The best ones that I have found are heirloom once they are super dark red and roma as well. Basically when you go shopping for them pick whichever tomatoes are the most red and ripe from your local grocery store or market.

Directions. 

1. Preheat your over to 350.

2. CHOP! Cut up your tomatoes in quarters and halves. Place into a casserole oven dish.

3. PEEL! Peel the whole head of garlic. I usually just smash each clove with the side of my knife (Be careful!) and then coarsely chop them and place in the casserole dish.

4. TEAR! Break up the fresh basil with your hands. Just tear the leaves into smaller pieces and place into the casserole dish.

5. SEASON! Drizzle the dish with a good helping of olive oil and sprinkle with 1 tablespoon of freshly cracked pepper and 1 tablespoon of coarse salt.

6. MIX! Use your hands to mix the whole mixture together.

7. ROAST! Roast in oven for a good hour and a half. Keep checking on it every 15-20 minutes and give it a mix. You will want to keep a good eye on the mixture as depending on which tomatoes you go with the recipe will cook longer than others. You want the juices from the tomatoes to be almost gone. Once this happens your sauce is done.

8. Let the sauce cool and as my sister April says, at this point what you add to your sauce is up to you. I like to blend mine and add chillies, anchovy paste and some more fresh herbs. It is best to add these things as much or as little as you want. I don't have exact measurements as to how much I use. I just taste till I am happy with it. I have also tried blending only half of the sauce and then mixing the blended half with the roasted half and that tastes pretty great too. The blended version is perfect for making home made pizza. Careful when blending if the mixture is still kinda hot.

**A couple notes, my sauce is always a orange color when done not red but it depends which tomatoes you use and also the sauce gets even more intense flavours when you put it in the fridge overnight to use the next day.

Enjoy our recipe!

Sofia & April. The Larocque Sisters.