This is a Mama Lunetta classic, right here. Not like my pseudo mom classic of stuffed zucchini. I messed with that.

You don’t mess with the fresh sauce.

The fresh sauce is quintessentially summer for me. This sauce means my mama had so many tomatoes in the garden that we were willing to sacrifice eating them raw to melting them down into a silky, steamy sauce.

This isn’t a red sauce. This is a fresh sauce. It’s not the type you spend all day cooking and coaxing to become the most mind-blowing deliciousness you’ve ever put into your mouth. That is best left for winter. Red sauce is best left for snow. It’s summer! This is fresh sauce. From start to finish this sauce should only take around 30 minutes. You don’t wanna cook these perfect summer tomatoes to death, you want them to still taste fresh. This is how I save summer.

Since beginning my seasonal eating journey, I’ve really learned to appreciate and respect the seasons. And man oh man do I not want to see summer go. The berries, stone fruits, and tomatoes along with it. So in several desperate attempts to preserve it, I’ve been stuffing my freezer with berry filled treats, stone fruit compotes and crisps, and this sauce. Just so that when winter is here and seeming never-ending, I can sneak a little bit of summer out and into my kitchen.

P.s. Of course after I photographed this recipe I learned all sorts of things about tomatoes today and discovered I typically make this sauce with the “wrong” type of tomatoes. But listen, the farmer’s market totally had tomato “seconds” and they were half price. They were just a little ugly, that’s all. But they tasted wonderful. That’s all ya really need. Really good in season tomatoes. I wouldn’t try and do this with canned. Just sayin’.

So where was I, oh yes. Apparently Romas would be best. But sauce is sauce dude. August tomatoes are still August tomatoes. Use what you have. I don’t discriminate. I mean even if it’s a little watery all that means is that when you finish your bowl of whatever you dumped the sauce on, at the end there will be this lovely, soupy tablespoon or so of cheese tomato water and I mean, you totally just drink that, right? Like you put down your fork and you put the bowl to your mouth and tip back and you drink it. I won’t tell if you do, because that’s definitely, definitely what I do. Shhh….

Fresh Sauce

Ingredients:

2 pounds fresh tomatoes

4 cloves of garlic, minced

1 tablespoon grass fed butter

scant ¼ cup of grated parmesan cheese

salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Start by bringing water to a boil in a large sauce pot.

Using a knife make a small “X” mark on the bottom of each of your tomatoes.

When the water is boiling drop your tomatoes in and watch for the skin to begin to split. This should only take 30 seconds to a minute to happen. Scoop the tomatoes out with a slotted spoon one by one as they start to split and gently place onto a flat surface to cool.

Once cool enough to handle, peel the skin of the tomatoes off. ***

Give your naked tomatoes a rough chop. They'll be super juicy! Save as much as that juice as you can to put into pot with tomatoes!

In a large sauce pot over a medium heat dump in your roughly chopped tomatoes. Create a small space in the middle of the tomatoes and dump in the minced garlic. Stir the garlic into the tomatoes. Let the sauce come to a boil then lower heat to a simmer. Stir occasionally and use the back of a wooden spoon to break up any large chunks of tomato. The sauce should take about 20 to 30 minutes to breakdown. Around 30 minutes in, add in your tablespoon of butter and ¼ cup of parmesan. Stir into sauce. Turn off heat. Taste for salt and pepper. Add as needed.

Yield: about 1 quart

***Note: I’ve totally done this lazily and not taken the skins off. You can absolutely skip this part if you wouldn’t mind the skin. Just start at the rough chop part and move on!