Tony's Fresh Tomato Sauce

Here's another staple in our house from my dear husband. Our tomatoes are ripening by the minute outside.  He loves to freeze many quarts of this lovely tomato sauce for the winter.

Like all good Italian recipes, he starts with lots of fresh garlic, chopped.  For this many Roma tomatoes he uses 6-8 cloves of garlic.

He chops the tomatoes and browns the garlic in a "nice amount" of olive oil on medium high heat.  You can add a chopped jalapeno pepper with the garlic if you like more heat.

He chops some fresh basil and oregano from the garden.  When the garlic is nicely browned add the tomatoes and herbs and lowers the heat.  Add a generous amount of kosher salt and coarse ground black pepper.  Tony says to "fight the urge to stir the tomatoes" otherwise the skins will  separate and you'll have an unappetizing pan of tomatoes with the skins floating on top.  He simmers the sauce for about an hour until most of the water reduces and the sauce is thick with chunky tomato pieces.  Just touch the tomatoes with your cooking spoon, don't stir!!

This can be served with melted feta and grated Romano cheese over pasta, ravioli, tortellini, etc.  I just had some of his sauce over zucchini noodles, "zoodles" as they're called.  It was luscious!