Oven roasted tomato sauce

[befabdaily]

I keep making this because it's totally delicious. I was looking for a way to get better tomato flavor out of my sauce -- without any off-plan additives. In the winter, I roast canned tomatoes in the oven until they are sort of caramelized. Last week, I thought to myself -- what if I just skipped a step and roasted the sauce?

I start with some cheap canned marinara from TJs that is compliant but un-compelling. The green cans. I also start with an oven-roasted head of garlic so you have to make that first if you don't have some on hand.

2 28 oz cans marinara sauce

1/2 cup olive oil

one head of garlic, roasted -- squoosh out the caramelized garlic cloves and discard the papery skins

1 cup of walnuts. I pan roasted these a little before adding them

A bunch of fresh basil, no bigger than your head, leaves picked and cleaned

Blend all this together until smooth.

Take a 9x13 or larger baking dish. You want to give the sauce room to encounter the hot air in the oven. Put in enough olive oil to coat the bottom of the pan and then pour in your sauce. Don't stir too much, there should be olive oil up around the edges of your sauce.

Put that sucker in the oven at 225 and forget about it for several hours. You might want to stir gently once or twice. At some point, the top edges of your sauce will start getting a little browned, the way the sauce on top of lasagna does when it's nice and ready. Timing is not crucial here, just, when it's thickened up and browned a bit, it's ready.