Adventures In Tomato Paste...Really.

So...as it stands, I'm not sure making your own tomato paste is worth all the effort. I use a lot of tomato paste in my cooking, especially during the winter when I make stew, sauces and soup. I am trying to be practical and wise about all this food preserving I've been doing lately and so when thinking ahead I knew I should get some tomato paste canned for later use. While it is true I use it often enough, tomato paste is ALWAYS something I forget to pick up at the market which means Tim jumps in the car and makes the trip just for this tiny item.
Here's how I made the paste:
Preheat oven to 200 degrees.
I put a layer of paste tomatoes (like roma's or amish, these are amish from my garden) in a casserole dish. I broke up a bulb of garlic (didn't even peel the cloves) and roughly chopped a medium onion then sprinkled on top of tomatoes. I added fresh herbs I grew from the garden (oregano, thyme and basil, dried is just as good) and drizzled (I hate that word) olive oil over the top. Place in oven. 

I roasted these for about 6 hours maybe 8.

Then I put all of this in my blender (didn't peel anything, left the skins on) added salt & pepper to taste and made a roasted tomato-type smoothie. Then I poured the smoothie mixture into a large sauce pan and cooked the ba-jeezus out of it. Stirring forever and ever probably every couple minutes for an hour, so not forever but for more time than I have to spend on this type of project for sure. Then I pressed the paste into 2 very, very small jars.
This one...

and this one.

I put new lids and rings on these jars and placed them in a water bath for 10 minutes. I am excited to use this paste but I'm sure it will be a long, long while. I'll let you know how this tomato paste helps out our dinners in a few months.