Tomato Sauce

Summer is coming to an end (sigh), I have spotted leaves falling off the trees which pisses me off because that means snow is coming. I try hard to preserve the memory of summer and so for me that means I make things like tomato sauce from all the extra garden veggies for a little bite of freshness all winter long! You could add meat to this sauce for some extra protein if you so desire, just cook it before adding to tomatoes.

*Approximately 10 pounds of ripe tomatoes (I'm not really sure to be quite honest - I have a GIANT salad bowl and it was piled high with tomatoes, when they were all cut up they filled a 4 gallon stock pot 3/4 of the way)
*1 medium eggplant, diced
*2 cups onion, diced
*6 cloves garlic, chopped
*1 large bell pepper, deseeded and diced
*1 cup carrots sliced
*2 tablespoons Italian seasoning blend
*1 teaspoon dried sage
*1 teaspoon dried thyme
*sea salt
*ground black pepper
*olive oil
*1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1. Cut out core of the tomato. Using a pairing knife (the small one in a set), grab the skin of the tomato and peel off - discard the skins. Once peeled, quarter the tomato (at this point I usually removed the seeds and to do so, I have a fine mesh strainer sitting in a bowl, I squeeze the seeds out of the tomato quarters into the strainer - the seeds will sit in the strainer and the juice will flow through the strainer into the bowl, you want to save this juice) and then put tomato quarters into your pot. When you have finished all tomatoes, set the pot on the stove and turn to medium heat.
2. Discard the seeds you have collected in the strainer. Pour the juice into a smaller stock pot and simmer until juice is reduced (you will at that point return this juice to the tomato sauce).
3. Heat about 2 tablespoons olive oil in a large saute pan over low-medium heat. Add the onions and garlic, season with salt and pepper, and cook until very soft, but keep the heat low so that they don't burn. Remove onion mix to a bowl. Add a touch more oil to the pan and saute the other vegetables with some salt and pepper
until soft. If the pan looks dry (eggplant soaks up a lot of fluid) you can add some of the simmering tomato juice to moisten).
4. Remember to stir cooking tomatoes while you are preparing everything else.
5. When tomatoes have heated through and are starting to release their juice and simmer, turn heat down to low/simmer. Let tomatoes start to reduce. If the eggplant mix is finished cooking, remove from heat and add to onions in bowl.  When the tomatoes have reduced in pot by 1/2-1 inch, add the vegetables and all the seasoning and remaining tomato juice, and stir.  Continue to let cook, stirring periodically, until pot is reduced by 1/2 and sauce appears thicker.
6. Remove pot from heat. Let sit about 30 minutes. Then divide sauce into containers for freezing. I recommend quart or pint sized containers. Let sit in containers without tops for 2 hours, then cap the containers and place in freezer. (You don't want to put hot containers into freezer because it raises the temperature of the freezer and can cause thawing and refreezing of other items in the freezer which causes 'freezer burn').

Enjoy on pasta, spaghetti squash, pizza, roasted eggplant etc!