You say tomato...

The first time I ever attempted tomato sauce I used some type of olive oil that contained Omega 3 oil and tasted like crap. I thought if I kept cooking the sauce, the taste would go away. I’ve learned that’s not a good strategy. So instead of wasting three precious Sunday hours on the endeavor and then being mad at myself for not stopping sooner, I threw the concoction away. It was several years before I tried homemade sauce again, and until very recently I would make too much of it, opting to use two 28 ounce cans of crushed tomatoes thinking that’s what you “had” to do.

So the recipe, which I kinda made up:

-One 28 ounce can of crushed tomatoes
-1-2 cans of tomato paste
-1-2 bay leaves
-Sprinkle of basil
-Sprinkle of parsley
-Sprinkle of onion
-Sprinkle of pepper
-Sprinkle of red pepper
-A handful of mushrooms

(Sometimes, I’m of the Rachel Ray school of not really measuring things, but adding a bit of spice at a time, and then adding more if things taste bland. Other times, I do think it isn’t a big deal to measure stuff in a teaspoon or tablespoon and I am not sure why she thinks you are saving so much time by not measuring.)

I know that red pepper can make things very spicy, so I use it sparingly. When I tasted the sauce it was too spicy. After about an hour of simmering (I set the timer to go off every 30 minutes to remind myself to stir and taste the sauce while watching a rerun of Supernanny) I added two packets of Domino sugar to tone the spice down.

In the beginning, I would add ketchup to the sauce, thinking that my Italian friends that love to cook once told me that’s their secret ingredient. (Note to anyone reading: telling an Italian person that you added ketchup to sauce, let alone telling an Italian person that THEY TOLD YOU to do this, i s very offensive and may cause them to not speak to you again.) Another 30 minutes go by and the sauce is STILL too spicy, so I add another two sugar packets, let the sauce go another 30 minutes and then call it a night—I’m impatient and figured I’d let it sit in the pot in the fridge overnight and modify anything in the morning. Stay tuned, I’m using the sauce in a very non-labor day treat, Stuffed Cabbage!)