Roasted Garlic and OIive Pasta Sauce

A simple sauce with a lot of flavor, this recipe will create six pint jars of tangy sauce that can be used in so many ways. A great pot of sauce to make when you might have extra company coming for dinner.

This recipe was found in a little cook booklet put out by a company named Market Day. I just happened to stop at a second hand store one day, and found they were having an 'all the books you can fit into a bag' sale. Two bucks, and I walked away with a great wealth of recipes to try!

Though our garden is just about spent for the year, and fresh tomatoes would have been best, canned tomatoes work just fine for this recipe.

Just a few other ingredients, and two heads of garlic, and you're good to go! Come along, let's make the sauce!


Recipe from a little cook booklet by Market Day - with amended options for the roasting schedule.
Shown with added mushrooms and freshly ground black pepper.

2 heads of garlic (full heads, not single cloves)
1 teaspoon of extra virgin olive oil
3  28-ounce cans of peeled, whole tomatoes
1  6-ounce can of pitted ripe black olives, drained, diced
1  6-ounce can of tomato paste
1 tablespoon of dried basil leaves
1 teaspoon of red pepper flakes

After removing most of the paper husk, keeping the cloves intact, cut the tops from two heads of garlic to expose the cloves. Don't fret if your garlic has tiny green sprouts (known as 'germs') as they can be easily removed after roasting.

Place each garlic head on a square of aluminum foil, drizzle with olive oil, and wrap foil around the garlic.You may roast the heads at 350 degrees for about an hour, or 450 for about half an hour. After roasting, remove from oven, open foil packets and allow heads to cool. Squeeze heads to force cloves from the husk. Mash cloves with a fork.

Drain canned tomato juice into a large pot. (This is an opportunity to use your Dutch oven.) :-) Dice remaining tomatoes, removing any skin or blossom ends, add diced tomatoes to the pot. Add the mashed garlic, olives, tomato paste, basil and red pepper flakes. Bring to a low boil, reduce heat and simmer 5 minutes.

Sauce can be stored in a container with a tight-fitting lid for one week, or frozen for one month. May also be canned, recipe provides for slightly more than six pint jars of sauce.

Marinated Tomatoes

As Summer nears an end, one should always reserve a few tomatoes for marinating. Quick and easy to fix, they pop into the refrigerator in no time, marinating while the rest of dinner is prepared.

Originally posted in Country Magazine, I swear this is the same recipe used by a former co-worker's mother for a company dinner. The tomatoes didn't last long, and everyone complimented Mrs. Crawford's dish, so much so, that she ended up printing the recipe (along with her fabulous cheese ball to which I would later become addicted) for many of the employees.

Grab a few tomatoes from the garden, or head for your local Farmer's Market early for the big ones. A large casserole dish is perfect for the marinating process. Simply cover with plastic wrap in the refrigerator.

• 3 large fresh tomatoes, sliced on the thick side
• 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1/4 cup red wine vinegar
• 1 teaspoon salt (optional use = 1/2 tsp. or none at all)
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 to 1 garlic clove, finely minced
• 2 Tablespoons onion, finely minced (make 'em pretty, they will stand out)
• 1 Tablespoon fresh parsley, finely minced
•  1 Tablespoon fresh basil, finely minced, or 1 teaspoon dried basil

Place sliced tomatoes in a large dish such as a rectangular casserole dish. Mix all remaining ingredients in a container with a lid, cover and mix well. Pour over tomato slices, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for several hours. 

Print several recipe cards. They are going to ask for them. Bon appetit!