A gentleman tries to keep his composure, but we panicked in late June. We resolved that our tomato crop was severely deficient. We tilled under a strip of lawn and put in more Roma tomato plants. These late additions are now producing, which means a surplus of fresh Roma tomatoes.

Never have we made tomato sauce. Never have we wanted to make tomato sauce. In 2010, we observed a Romanian family as they stemmed, pressed, boiled and bottled. Their efforts inspired awe. Their process, however, was labor intensive. Frankly, the store bought stuff satiates us. It’s cheap. It’s tasty enough. It’s much less effort.

When life gives you a bucket of Roma tomatoes, though, you make tomato sauce. Otherwise, you’re an unappreciative, wasteful toad. An authentic jerkwad. Not wanting to be that, we embraced the culinary challenge.

Tomatoes must be peeled and seeded to make sauce. You can do this by hand. Stated another way, we could’ve done this by hand. Of course, we didn’t do this by hand. Cutting out the stems proved a manual task. We delegated everything else to the Kitchen-Aid.  Running sliced tomatoes through the strainer attachment separates the pulp and juice (wanted) from the skin and seeds (unwanted).

In its natural state, the pulp/juice concoction is too watery. You must gently boil it, stirring every couple of minutes. If serving the sauce now, add half of a stick of butter and a teaspoon of salt and boil off about half the liquid. Remove from the burner and mix in chopped basil and oregano.

If preserving the sauce, boil off about a third of the liquid, so you can finish thickening later. Pour it into 16-ounce jars with a tablespoon of lemon juice. Attach the lids, and submerse in a water bath for 45 minutes.  Store in a cool, dry place.

Challenge defeated. Sauce success. Yet, let us warn you. We have discovered a Catch-22 in our gastronomic adventures. Fail and, well, you have failed. Triumph and your world changes forever.  Prego doesn’t have the same je ne sais quoi.