Homemade Pasta Sauce

Now that I have a post about quick pasta sauces, I find myself the possessor of a bucketful of tomatoes from my family's garden. I went home for fall break and my mom said, "Please take some tomatoes back with you. We have way more than I know what to do with. You can make some of that fresh pasta sauce for your roommates." Thanks mom, I will.

Making pasta sauce from scratch is a process, let me tell you. But it is SOOO worth it.

First you get lots of tomatoes.

Then you cut a little X on the bottoms of the tomatoes, plop them in some boiling water for about 30 seconds.....

And shock them in an ice bath!

Peel them, cut them in half and squeeze out the seeds, then throw them in a blender and whiz for a second. Then throw some fine diced mirepoix (carrots, onions, celery) in a saucepan with a few tablespoons of olive oil and cook until tender. Blend the mirepoix, and combine in the pan with the tomatoes and about a cup of your blanching water (the water you used to boil the tomatoes), and simmer the snot out of it. Seriously, you simmer it forever. My sauce sat on the stove for three and a half hours. Salt and pepper it to taste and voila! You have achieved sauciness!