Roasted Tomato Sauce--Smith age 3 and Lucy age 2

Lucy has been closing her eyes every time I try to take a picture of her. 

So all of her pictures look a little (maybe a lot) goofy. 

Chopped up tomatoes.

Baked Tomatoes.

Finished Product. With a glare.  

Smith's Take:  It was yummy to cut up the tomatoes.  My knife worked good.

Amy's Take:  I was going to do some cooking without my kids yesterday.  I had lots of extra tomatoes from the garden to take care of and I wanted to get it done quick.  Smith and Lucy didn't think that was right.  So, we all chopped tomatoes up (For the record--it takes longer with butter knives--but at least no one got hurt).

This is what I do with extra tomatoes from my garden--taught to me by the wife of Eric's boss a few years back who I only met twice and whose name I do not remember.  I do know she was a food critic for a newspaper.  And a great cook.   I take all my extra tomatoes--any variety, color, size and chop them into similar size pieces (or not so similar sizes if Smith and Lucy are helping).  I put them on a cookie sheet with sides and bake at 350 until they are roasted good--and a lot of the liquid has evaporated.  Yesterday it took about 40 minutes, but it really depends on how juicy your tomatoes are and how deep the cookie sheet is piled up.  You just let them keep cooking until they look like the picture above.  Or something like that.   Then I let them cool, scrape all the goop up off the cookie sheet,  puree them in the blender and pour into a sandwich sized freezer bag.  Label and freeze.  You could squeeze all of the seeds out first and take the skins off too, but I don't bother.  It was a lot of work to grow those seeds darn it and I'm not wasting them. This is the best tasting tomato sauce EVER.  I use it on pizza, spaghetti, enchiladas--whatever I need tomato sauce for.  Eric's boss's wife said that she mixed it with some cream to make a pasta sauce.  And now I have some in my freezer.