Taste of summer in winter

Last night we had pasta with tomato sauce. The sauce was made from our wonderful heirloom tomatoes - canned at the end of the season. Because it is dangerous to use the hot water bath canning method with fresh herbs, garlic and onions in the sauce, it was pure tomato. But during the summer I also made a pesto of fresh basil, oregano, garlic and onion with just enough olive oil to hold it together. I froze this in ice cube trays and once frozen put the cubes in bags and back in the freezer. So last night I took two of those herb cubes and added them to the tomato sauce. I also had some bulk breakfast sausage from our local farmer Nick, and the sauce did not need a single thing. No salt, no additional flavoring - just spooned it over the pasta with a little pecorino Romano and it was perfect! I have sage pesto, arugula pesto, fines herbs pesto (parsley and tarragon mostly), as well as the standard basil with garlic and nuts. They were all put into ice cube trays and frozen. I was talking about it this evening with a colleague and he suggested trying sun dried tomato pesto. I think I will do that this coming season, he recommended it with goat cheese on fresh made bread. Yum. Especially in the winter when you are starved for a little taste of summer.