Those little tins of tomato paste available at your local grocery store will do in a pinch but you can't beat the homemade version. Making your own tomato paste, also called conserva, might seem daunting but Derrick at An Obsession With Food shows us that it's really not that difficult. Preparing the tomatoes is the easy part, letting it reduce for hours in the oven while you decide which recipe to use it in first is the hard part.

Here's a great recipe for Shrimp Marinara with Pasta from Diana's Kitchen to get you started.