I don't get hung up on which tomato goes in the sauce. We grow a variety of "sauce tomatoes, and slicing tomatoes with 1 or 2 plants of cherry tomatoes. As the season gets in full swing, we pick anything that is ripe. I put aside a few "slicing tomatoes" for sandwiches, etc. and some cherry tomatoes for salads. Any surplus gets thrown in the sauce with the Amish paste, San Marzano, and Romas. I don't have a "favorite" for sauce, each year it's a blend of what we have growing.
I hate waste, so I dehydrate the skins as I get a chance. Since I can around 36 Qts of sauce each season, I don't waste a lot of time peeling the skins off each tomato. After I blanch and cool them, I give a tug on the skins to try to remove them before running them through my food mill. Not taking the skins off results in having to clean the mill much more often so it makes sense to remove as many skins as possible before running the tomatoes through the food mill. The skins that come off easily get put in a separate bowl. When I get time, I spray the dehydrator with cooking spray, and lay them all out. I have silicone inserts for the dehydrator so I use them. They dry very quickly, a few hours. You could use an oven on low also. When done, they are paper-like and I smash them into my spice grinder. I pack them in until I can't get any more in, then pulse it 3 or 4 times. They turn to powder. I use a funnel and dump it into a large empty spice shaker. By the end of the season, it's full. I shake tomato powder over roasts, add it to soups, anything that would benefit from a richer tomato flavor. It lasts in the spice cabinet for a year no problem.
We grow so many tomatoes, that I also end up making tomato paste. I put the excess tomato sauce into a large crock pot with the a wooden spoon under the lid so the steam can escape and slow cook it on low. You need to stir it every so often, and I usually leave it overnight and then keep an eye on it the next day. When the water evaporates out, It is very thick and I put it into extra-large silicone ice-cube trays and freeze them overnight. I then pop them out of the trays into gallon ziplock bags. and put them in the freezer. Each cube is aprox. half-a-can of tomato paste which is perfect b/c many recipies call for only 1/2 can.
