Tom Fusia's Roasted Tomato Sauce

2 lbs of ripe tomatoes – Roma’s work best

5-7 cloves of garlic - chopped

Rosemary – 2-3 sprigs worth of the leaves

Zest from one lemon

Salt

Pepper

Extra virgin olive oil 

This is very easy and very good.  Tomatoes get this great rich taste when they are roasted and get a little char on them.

Cut the tomatoes up into 1 – 1 ½ inch chunks

Put them in a bowl with the garlic, rosemary, lemon zest and salt & pepper.

Pour about 1/3 of a cup of extra virgin olive oil over the tomato mixture and stir together.

Dump it into a rectangular casserole dish and bake at 400 degrees for 40 minutes uncovered.

Every 10 minutes, take the sauce out of the oven and stir the tomatoes.

At the end of the baking time, put the casserole under the broiler for about 10 minutes. You want the tops of the tomatoes to get a little burnt but not too much (it adds a really cool taste), so keep an eye on them.

When done, stir it again and serve over tube pasta like rigatoni or penne or stuffed pasta like tortelloni.

You can also play with the ingredients and use oregano instead of rosemary, more or less garlic, or fresh basil. If you use fresh basil, don’t add it until the sauce is out from under the broiler.  Basil loses most of it’s flavor if cooked too long.