a little comfort food

is there anything that says comfort food like homemade tomato sauce? we started making home made tomato sauce before we got married as a cost cutting measure and have kept it up for the the taste and control that making our own sauce affords us. here is how we do it.

stuff you have to chop:

one large sweet onion, any onion will work we just happen to like sweet yellow texas onions

4 to 8 cloves of garlic depending on your affinity for garlic, as far as erin and i are concerned you can never have too much

one medium to large carrot grated, this is the secret ingredient, the carrot counters the acidity of the tomatoes and evens out the sauce with a hint of sweetness.

spices:

1 tbs of salt
1 tsp of pepper
1 tbs of dried oregano
1 tbs of dried thyme
red pepper flakes to taste

the last ingredient is of course the tomatoes. you need two 28oz cans of crushed tomatoes.

erin and i have one piece of specialty equipment we use called a food mill it's a medieval cousin of the food processor. we use the food mill get an even consistency with our sauce, if you don't have a food mill you could use a food processor or a blender just make sure the sauce is cool before blending or you could burn yourself. or, if you like chunky sauce you can just skip the food mill step all together.

all right let's cook:

1) chop up your onions and garlic, and grate your carrot

2) heat a 1/4 cup of olive oil in a pot on medium heat and add you onions, salt and pepper to saute

3) once the onions have been cooking for a min or two add the garlic, oregano, and thyme make sure to stir consistently or else your sauce base WILL burn.

4) after about 5 mins add the carrots and keep stirring for another 4 to 5 mins.

5) now you add the canned crushed tomatoes. Stir to mix the ingredients and allow the sauce to simmer for a least 20 mins. Stirring occasionally.

6) at this point our sauce is done cooking. if you like your sauce chunky you are finished just transfer the sauce to some jars and store in the fridge. however, for us that are picky about our tomato sauce consistency, this where our food mill/food processor/blends come in.

7) after the sauce has cooled transfer your sauce to the processor of your choice and blend till the constancy is like the sauce you get at the store.

after this is done transfer to your preferred storage device and and store in the fridge for up to 2 weeks, although we have never had it last that long as it is way too good.

We keep our sauce in used claussen pickle jars. this recipe yields 3 pickle jars worth of sauce. we use this stuff for everything from pasta and pizza sauce, to bases for slow cooker meals, and sometimes we will just eat it out of the jar, it is that good we swear.

happy cooking

jack and erin
the foodliweds