I Have Mastered This Basic Food Item

For a long time I was really horrible at making pasta sauce. Like I almost wish I had pictures of my pasta sauce failures to show you because, oh, they were awful. And yes - you're saying, "But couldn't you just follow a recipe?" Well you would think so! But I was always lacking some random ingredient, like tomato paste or fresh thyme or two quarts of Amarone or something that you do not really in any way need to make pasta sauce, and at that time I was under the impression that not following the recipe TO THE LETTER would ruin everything.

With some help from my boyfriend the kitchen genius I've figured out the easiest route to really good pasta sauce that you can also use on pizza.

So first you want to take an onion, dice it, and put it in a warm skillet or saucepan with a little bit of olive oil. Take a couple cloves of garlic, smash 'em and dice 'em, and throw those in too. This can all happen over low heat. Put some kosher salt, black pepper and a pinch of dried oregano on those and stir everything to coat it in the oil.

When the onions are soft, you'll want to put in your tomatoes. You can use canned ones - the 28oz can of Hunts or whatever will do fine, though if you're in Ohio and would like to support a localish company then you can use Gia Russa brand.

I personally use these:

These six-pound cans of San Marzano tomatoes are less than $4 at Costco. When I'm ready to open the can I just portion out what I don't use into freezer bags and freeze them for another time. We get 5-6 portions from each can, and each portion is enough to make sauce for a couple of pizzas or to sauce a decent amount of pasta.

You can also use fresh tomatoes, naturally. Dice them and get the seeds out. And actually ideally you should blanch them and peel the skins off, so if you don't want to bother with that then...it's can time.

So throw the tomatoes in the pot and turn the heat up to medium. At this point I add some dried basil and perhaps a bit more salt and pepper.

We buy huge quantities of dried herbs at Gallucci's.


Wait, let me get a close-up on those prices.



At these prices you can use allllll the basil and oregano you like and never, ever worry about running out. Look at you with your oregano, using it like a fancy rich person who has so much oregano!

(I also bought a quart of dried marjoram for fifty-nine cents.)

Now that everything is simmering away, you can stick an immersion blender into your sauce and puree it. If you don't have an immersion blender, then I really feel sorry for you but you can use a food processor or regular blender to achieve desired sauce consistency. It just gets a little more messy.

After you get the consistency you like, taste your sauce and add salt or pepper or more herbs as necessary. But really, you're done.

Now you have mastered this basic food item!