Farmer's Market Spaghetti

So... I finally got around to using those homegrown tomatoes the other day that Greg acquired from the farmer's market.  I wanted to make one last spaghetti sauce with fresh tomatoes before the summer bounty is over!

I made this up as I went along, but I wrote everything down, because it was SO delicious.  I froze the batches I made, and we thawed one and had it over whole wheat spaghetti tonight with a salad.  I was too excited to take pictures of our delicious feast! 

I cooked my spaghetti sauce in the crockpot all day, but this would be even better if you could simmer it on the stove for an afternoon to reduce the water a little.

Warning: this simply will not work with store bought tomatoes.  They have no flavor.  If you want to make spaghetti sauce with canned tomatoes see this post.

Spaghetti Sauce:

Ingredients
20ish  medium homegrown tomatoes
small amount of olive oil
1 small-medium yellow onion, chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
8 oz mushrooms, chopped
1 red pepper, chopped
1 1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp dried parsley
1 tsp dried basil 1/4 cup red wine

• Get some water boiling on the stove.
• Prepare your tomatoes:
• Mark an X with a knife through the skin on the bottom of each tomato
• In batches of about four, blanch the tomatoes for a couple of minutes in the boiling water
• Once cool enough to handle, peel the tomatoes with your fingers. If the skin does not come off easily, you did not blanch them long enough
• Dice tomatoes, and remove excess liquid and seeds (don't worry about doing this perfectly, I just let the extra run off of my cutting board into the sink..  a few seeds won't be a big deal)
• Meanwhile you could start the onions, red pepper, mushrooms, and garlic:
• Saute onions over medium with a small amount of olive oil until they start to sweat a little.
• Add the red pepper and mushrooms and saute until softened (about 7 minutes), not browned
• Add the garlic and saute for 1 minute more. Remove from heat.
• At this point you can add all of the ingredients to the crockpot and cook it on low for 5-7 hours. If you are cooking it on the stove: combine all ingredients, and bring to a light boil, then turn the heat down and let it simmer.  You could simmer this for a little as 30 minutes, but a couple of hours on very low would be perfect. 20 minutes before you are done cooking, add 1/4 cup of red wine.
• Transfer about half of the mixture to a blender and blend until the big chunks are gone. Return to pot.
• Serve over spaghetti, spaghetti squash, or any other favorite!