Farm Box Fixin's: Roasted Peppers, Tomato, and Onion Sauce

This is part of an ongoing series about what we get, and how in the world we deal with, all of the veggies, fruits, and surprises we get in our farm box. 

We have been in the height of the summer harvest the past few weeks, and most of the farm box produce has been of the very easy to use variety. Lots and lots of onions, tomatoes, and peppers. However, when you get upwards if 6-10 onions, 8-15 tomatoes, and a whole bag of peppers a week, and you're getting them every week, there begins to be a backlog. I had to come up with a way to use up the backlog quickly. So I made up this Roasted Peppers, Tomato, Onion sauce.

It is very thick to begin with, but you can add in olive oil later to make it more spreadable (and go further!)

I used about 10 small and 3 medium tomatoes, 12 small-medium peppers, and 4 medium red onions.

First I cut up my peppers and onions into 1-inch wide slides, tossed with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and put them in a 350 degree oven until I saw the ends just start to blacken (about 40-45 minutes.)

This is what they looked like after roasting. I still want to have a little body to them for texture.

I thickly sliced the tomatoes, put into an oiled dish, brushed with olive oil on top, sprinkled with salt and pepper, and put them in the oven for almost an hour. I look for when they have collapsed, soft all the way through, but still moist.

Love this mini-food processor! Matt found it on the free table at work.

I put all of the veggies into the food processor and blend until there are no large chunks. For this I don't add any water or oil, I just use the moisture that is already present in the tomatoes.

I think I really pushed the limits of this food processor's capacity.

Once everything was blended I poured it into a bowl and added in a few dashes of garlic powder. I decided not to roast garlic along with the veggies because I didn't have fresh garlic, but I could have used a garlic infused olive oil on the veggies instead and have gotten a similar taste.

So pretty!

This made about 2.5 cups of thick sauce. I keep it as is for use as a pizza sauce, and add olive oil for pasta sauce. It could also be good as a sandwich spread. It has a slightly sweet flavor from the roasting.

We made pizza with it! 

John put the onions and pepperonis on the pizza.

 I made the dough about noon, so it's ready for fixing and baking in the late afternoon.

I like to brush the whole thing with olive oil, giving some extra love along the crust, and sprinkle on onion powder, garlic powder, and italian seasoning. I had some parmesan cheese that needed to be used up, and some mozzarella, but I also like feta on a pizza. Letting some of the cheese get on the crust creates some really good crust texture.

All done!

We used more of our red onions from farm box on the pizza. These onions are so fresh, they have a very strong flavor unlike typical red onions. Normally I can sub them in for yellow or white onion with no problems, but I didn't like them as much on this. The sweetness from the red onion was a little much with the sweeter than usual sauce. Matt liked it though, so it just depends on your preferences.

Next time I would probably bake it at 375 instead of 350 so to get more of a crunchier crust.

It is very important to add cornmeal to your baking sheet! It keeps the pizza from sticking, and I theorize that is helps the dough in the middle cook better.