Pasta Sauce

The kitchen smells awesome right now!  A pot of homemade pasta sauce on the stove.  That's gravy for all you italians out there. But we norwegians know the truth.  Gravy is brown or tan and is poured over mashed potatoes (You know who you are...).

Between my sister's house and ours, we had some tomatoes in the garden that needed to be used up.  I'll be honest, they were mostly hers.  My plants are pathetic and they have a magic deck that turns everything into lush green large plants.    Most of these were roma tomatoes with a couple of larger round ones.  Who knows what kind they were.  Anyways--a perfect excuse to make a batch of sauce.

You can vary the amount of ingredients based on the number of tomatoes used or your personal taste, but this is what I used for this particular batch.

Don't have fresh ingredients?  You don't have to settle for a store bought jar sauce.  See the alternate recipe at the end.  It's almost better!

Pasta Sauce

4 T. olive oil
1 small onion
3-4 cloves garlic, chopped
About 25 roma tomatoes
1 small can tomato paste
3-4 T. fresh parsley, chopped
2 T. fresh oregano, chopped
10 fresh basil leaves, chopped
1 1/2 t. salt
1/2 t. crushed red pepper


Remove the skins of the tomatoes by scoring the top of each tomato with and X.  Add the tomatoes to a pot of simmering water for about 30 seconds.  Transfer them to an ice bath.  The skins should come right off.  Super easy.

Saute the onions in olive oil.  Add garlic.  Add all other ingredients.   Simmer on the stove for at least an hour, stirring occasionally.  The tomatoes will break down as they cook.  If you want it less chunky, you can use a potato masher once the sauce is done cooking.  Another option would be an immersion blender.  That will really blend everything together in a smooth sauce.


Cheaters Recipe:
4 T. olive oil
1 small onion
4 T. jarred chopped garlic
6 28oz. cans of diced tomatoes
2 small cans tomato paste
1 1/2 T. dried parsley
1 T. dried oregano
1 1/2 T. dried basil
1 1/2 t. salt
1/2 t. crushed red pepper
1/2 c. dry red wine, optional, for a nice rich flavor and for..why not?

Saute the onions in olive oil.  Add garlic.  Add all other ingredients, except wine.   Simmer on the stove for at least an hour, more like two, stirring occasionally, to reduce the liquid so it is a thicker sauce.  The tomatoes will break down as they cook.  About 1/2 way through the simmer time, add the wine.  Blend with an immersion blender to desired chunkiness 

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Comments:
T = Tablespoon
t = teaspoon