Monday Recipe - Tomato Sauce

I'm posting this recipe with the caveat that I haven't actually eaten it yet. I've tasted it, and it tasted yummy, but I haven't had it with a whole bowl of pasta (that's what I'll have tonight, and then post the results in the comments).

September is Tomato Month, with an abundance of ripe local tomatoes at the farmer's markets and farm stands. I picked up some really good tomatoes (and spent wayyyyy too much on them - $23 for 10 tomatoes. But they're the kind you would eat with mozzarella and basil, rather than make tomato sauce out of. I'm hoping this means that they just made better tomato sauce...) at my local farm stand. And having a food processor makes it so much easier (chopping onions and carrots takes literally two minutes instead of 20, and the pieces don't fly everywhere. And I finally figured out that the way to get my food processor not to puree the onions is to just put a little onion at a time instead of filling the thing up). I even used the food processor for the tomatoes, which made a nice puree sauce consistency, rather than just chopped up pieces of tomatoes (what I ended up with last year).

I didn't actually measure some of the ingredients, I just poured and tasted, so please forgive the vague amounts below.

Vodka Tomato Sauce

9 large tomatoes
2 large onions, chopped finely
2-3 handfuls of baby carrots, chopped finely
garlic oil (or oil and garlic)
a couple teaspoons of minced garlic
fresh chopped ginger (about a thumb's worth, though next time I'll add more)
fresh basil
red pepper flakes
salt/pepper
vodka (1-2 second pour) - optional
parmesan - optional

Fill a large pot with water and bring to a boil. Boil the tomatoes whole (you may have to do this in two shifts if making the quantity above) until the skin starts to peel away from the flesh. Remove tomatoes from water with a spoon (and add remaining tomatoes if necessary). Set tomatoes to cool, or run cool water over them. Peel skin off and discard. With your fingers, peel off the outside layer of the tomato flesh and set in food processor. Discard seeds and juice from middle layer. Remove stem, and split the center into chunks. Process to a pulp and set aside. Repeat with the rest of the tomatoes.

In a large pot, saute onions, garlic, and ginger in oil until onions are fragrant and translucent. Add tomato, carrots, red pepper flakes and basil (to taste). Set to simmer a while (maybe 15 minutes), then add vodka. Simmer a while longer (I wasn't keeping track, maybe another 15-20 minutes or so). Add salt and pepper to taste.

Remove from heat. Serve on pasta with a sprinkle of parmesan and some jalapeno chicken sausage.