Fresh tomato sauce

Even though I love to cook, I've always loved the convenience of opening a jar of pasta sauce. With this weekend came another first, this time making my own sauce from tomatoes from the farmer's market. How could I not, with the bounty available?

I used San Marzano and other heirloom tomatoes for this sauce (not the green zebras--I have a feeling they are too mild flavored for putting into a sauce and are best enjoyed in their fresh, uncooked and mostly unadulterated state). I had recently read somewhere that San Marzanos were the go-to tomatoes for sauces--a quick consultation with my beloved Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone cookbook by Deborah Madison confirmed this and also noted that other plum shaped tomatoes are good for sauces as they are more "meaty" and not as juicy (so your sauce won't be too thin or watery).

This summer my food mill is really making a comeback after being unceremiously wedged under a pipe under the kitchen sink and forgotten for a couple of years. Previously I had used it exactly one time--to make a corn soup that, while very tasty, was decidedly not a good time crunch-dinner party soup and required many minutes that I didn't have as well as some motivation via cursing to process through the food mill. Have you ever yelled at soup? Truth be told, it's not the clearest picture of mental well-being.

Cooking the sauce turned out to be a lot like cooking tomato soup, only a quicker process. A good deal of garlic and good olive oil as well as some onion and basil also went into the sauce. Once it all cooked, I put it through the food mill and back into the pot it went with the pasta. The sauce was actually a bit thinner than I'd expected. I was in a rush to taste it, so I decided to just go with it and not cook it down to be thicker--but next time when I have more time on my hands and less impatient hunger, I will. I dressed the pasta and sauce with a bit of additional basil and parmesan (I love parmesan, especially on pasta, and right now I have a lot of it thanks to all the parmesan I buy for rinds I need to make my kale and beans dish even better).

The sauce was delicious and has fresh, clean tomato flavors that my jarred sauces can't touch. I can't believe I haven't tried this before....what have I been missing all these years? It's hard to grasp the fact that the tomatoes will not be in season very much longer. I've been thinking ahead to next week and wondering how well tomato sauce will freeze so I can have some for the winter. I've already got a batch of tomato soup in the freezer.