Southwestern Pasta Primavera Sauce

I know I've been away for some time and thought I'd kick off my return with some spicy spaghetti sauce that I recently made with my Mom (thanks for the pictures Mom!). It is absolutely delicious and is a twist on your regular pasta dish.

Southwestern Pasta Primavera
1 1/2 lbs of tomatoes (you can use heirloom, roma, vine, whatever large tomatoes tickles your fancy)
1 pint of cherry or grape tomatoes
2 yellow onions (thinly sliced)
2 heads of garlic (skins removed)
1/3 chopped cup of fresh herbs (I used basil, rosemary, oregano and thyme)
1/4 cup of olive oil
olive oil for brushing
3 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar
1/2 tablespoon of salt
1/2 tablespoon of pepper
3 anaheim peppers
3 jalapeno peppers
2 zucchinis
2 summer squash
1 red bell pepper
1 green bell pepper
1 ear of corn cooked and cut off the cobb (you can use frozen corn too)
1 large bag of spinach
18 oz tomato paste

First thing you want to do is slow roast the tomatoes. Set your oven to 200 and cut all your tomatoes in half, cutting out any remnants of stems and place them into a large roasting pan with the sliced onion and fresh herbs. Toss them with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Roast them for two hours, turning them after an hour.


After the tomatoes are nicely roasting, you want to roast the anaheim and jalapeno peppers. So turn the oven up to 400 and brush the peppers with a little bit of olive oil. You will need to turn them every 10-15 minutes once there skins start to blister like this:


Once these are completely roasted, you want to place them into a container and seal with a lid to let them sweat for about 15 minutes. This makes the skins easy to peel off. Once they have finished sweating, remove the skin and add them to the tomatoes. Now you need to blend this. I use a stick blender but if you don't have on you, you can blend this in batches in a regular blender.


Now that the tomato base of the sauce is done, you want to roast your vegetables. So chop the remaining vegetables into chunky pieces, except for the corn and spinach, and toss with a little bit of olive oil and roast them for 25 minutes at 400.


Normally, when roasting vegetables you would want to roast them for a little longer, but these veggies are going to also be cooking when you simmer the sauce. You want to turn them once or twice. Once they are done you add them to the sauce along with the cooked corn that has been cut off the cobb and the tomato paste.

Now, the last thing to do is to wilt the spinach. You can do this by placing it in a saute pan over medium heat with a little bit olive oil. Cover it and stir occasionally until its a little wilted. Then add it to the sauce and stir.


After you add the spinach to the sauce, let it simmer for about 2 hours over low heat. It will thicken up nicely and be perfect to serve over any pasta. I love it over tortellini along with some delicious garlic bread and a tossed garden salad. Yum!