Mack’s Roasted Tomato Sauce

Its the height of tomato season and I would be remiss to not share the recipe for my favorite easy homemade roasted tomato sauce. This is the perfect recipe for this time of year when tomatoes are inexpensive yet flavorful in the grocery stores and your garden likely has more cherry tomatoes than you know what to do with!

This time last year, I made this roasted tomato sauce for the first time because I had accidentally let a couple large heirloom tomatoes get too ripe to use for a caprese salad but, given how much they had cost at the grocery store, I did not want to let them go to waste. Fortuitously, this William Sonoma recipe popped up in my email, and I thought to myself, “I can totally swap out the plum tomatoes for those heirlooms.” Which, for anyone that knows me, I do not take swapping ingredients or straying from recipes lightly. But, that’s just what I did, cutting the heirloom tomatoes into chunks and then roasted them according to the directions below (I even got really crazy and omitted the cherry tomatoes). Once done roasting, you simply put the contents of your pan into the blender with garlic, dried oregano, red wine vinegar and then, with the blender running, add a stream of olive oil. You end up with a rich, flavorful tomato sauce so creamy that you will be shocked it contains no dairy.

So this tomato season rolled around I have now made with this recipe several more times with whatever collection of fresh, ripe tomatoes that I need to use up in my kitchen. The addition of the roasted cherry tomatoes only makes the pasta more fabulous. But if you are just looking for a tasty and easy tomato sauce – this recipe is for you.

INGREDIENTS

• 24 oz ripe tomatoes, any variety cored and quartered depending on size (original recipe recommends 8 plum tomatoes)
• 2 cups (12 oz./375 g) cherry tomatoes
• 1/2 cup (4 fl. oz./120 ml) extra-virgin olive oil
• Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
• 12 oz. (375 g) pasta noodles
• 3 garlic cloves
• 1 tsp. dried oregano
• 1 Tbs. red wine vinegar
• Grated Parmesan cheese for serving
• Fresh basil leaves for serving

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat an oven to 400°F.
2. Arrange your 24 oz of tomatoes along with the two cups of cherry tomatoes in a single layer on a baking sheet. Drizzle with 1/4 cup (2 fl. oz) of the olive oil and season generously with salt and pepper. Bake until the cherry tomatoes are softened and wrinkled but not yet totally collapsed, about 15 minutes. Transfer the cherry tomatoes to a bowl and set aside. Return the other tomatoes to the oven (if they are larger and still need more time in the oven) and continue roasting until softened and collapsed, about 15 minutes more.
3. While the tomatoes are roasting, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over high heat. Add your pasta and cook, stirring occasionally, until al dente (tender but still slightly firm), according to the package instructions. Drain the pasta and return to the pot to keep warm.
4. Transfer the 24 oz of tomatoes and their juices to a blender and add the garlic, oregano and vinegar. Blend on high speed until smooth, about 2 minutes, then reduce the speed to low and add the remaining 1/4 cup (2 fl. oz.) olive oil in a slow, steady stream. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Continue blending on high speed until the sauce reaches your desired consistency.
5. Add the sauce to the cooked pasta and toss to coat. Divide the pasta among individual bowls and top each with some of the roasted cherry tomatoes. Sprinkle with Parmesan and basil and serve immediately.

Recipe Credit: Williams Sonoma

If you have made it this deep into the blog post, wow! Good for you! I never make it past the recipe myself. But for anyone of you wondering, here is why I call this tomato sauce “Mack’s”.

Mack, our English bulldog, was Ryan and I’s first baby. I had fought getting a dog for years because Ryan travels A LOT for work and I knew a dog would ultimately end up my responsibility. But I was finally worn down, and sure enough, it was me most days driving Mack to and from doggy daycare at my grandmother’s house just twenty blocks north where Mack lived his best life eating ice cream and laying on the couch all day while my grandma read books right next to him – they adored each other. Then, when we had Sam and Emma, Mack stayed home with the kids and our nanny. And, boy, he loved his kids.

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Fast forward seven years, Mack is just shy of turning eight years old. Ryan has already been gone for a week in Israel for work and it’s Saturday and I felt like I was winning at being “Super Mom.” I had prepped an actual dinner for myself by washing and chopping the tomatoes for roasting (often I eat cereal and drink red wine for dinner when Ryan is out-of-town), and the kids had their skateboards, ALL their pads on, and we were headed to the park a couple blocks from our house with Mack in tow. Mack was acting totally normal – he ran when he saw the leash come out; hid under our dining room table until I bribed him out with a treat that he inhaled; and then he trotted normally to the park where we watched Sam and Emma try to learn how to stay upright on their skateboards.

Then, all of sudden, Mack stopped breathing. Totally out of the blue, no seizure, no warning. Just stopped breathing. Admittedly, I screamed. Total strangers throughout the park came running. Sam and Emma were hysterical. A nice woman tried performing CPR (who then actually brought a sympathy card to my children’s school that very next week for us). I called our vet (it was Saturday afternoon and they had just closed) and 911 (I know, I wasn’t thinking clearly) – no help. And I had no clue how to get a 50 lb bulldog and my kids back to my house. I called my sister who thank goodness was home getting ready for a friend’s wedding. She jumped in my mother’s SUV who had just arrived at her house to babysit, and came running into the park in formal wedding attire to save me. I then climbed in the trunk of the SUV with Mack, while my sister buckled my sobbing kids into the back seat and drove us to her house where I then left my still sobbing children with my mother while I tried to make it through UW Husky football traffic to any emergency vet office. Unfortunately the vet’s office confirmed that Mack was indeed deceased and likely had suffered from a massive heart attack. On my way to the vet’s office, I got to call my husband Ryan, wake him up in the middle of the night in Israel, and tell him that his beloved Mack was dead.

The next day a very thoughtful friend, who happens to be a children’s occupational therapist, dropped off cookies, a plant, and a card for us. To this day, she probably doesn’t know how much her gesture meant to me in that moment; however, it was her advice that has stuck with me the most. Frankly, I was very concerned about what sort of trauma my kids had suffered in that park and did not know how to explain my reaction to them. My friend recommended that I analogize grief to Sam and Emma like a cloud. It comes and goes; sometimes clouds are gray and rainy or may even contain a thunderstorm, while other times they look like just wisps of cotton candy. I used the grief-cloud analogy for Sam and Emma repeatedly during the weeks to come and I sincerely believe it helped them better understand the feelings and emotions they were having during that time.

While Ryan remained in Europe for the following week because of work, I continued to grieve at home. I couldn’t post about Mack on Instagram let alone talk about it without bawling; it was too raw for a long time. So admittedly this post is probably now a long overdue type of personal therapy. But I went ahead and made Williams Sonoma’s roasted tomato sauce recipe for the first time that weekend (remember, that I had prepped the tomatoes when I thought I was dominating my role as “mom” ha!) and with a large glass of red wine it was the very definition of the perfect comfort food when I needed it most. Mack would have preferred the Parmesan cheese I sprinkled on top (his favorite treat in the world was cheese!) but forever this roasted tomato sauce will be “Mack’s” to me…

Please let us know if you make Mack’s roasted tomato sauce by taking a pick and tagging us on Instagram @letswineaboutitsister. We would love to know what you think of the recipe!