All Purpose Pasta Sauce

This sauce is one of those you can memorize and throw together at anytime.

I'll start with the basic version of the sauce - and then I'll suggest variations. I'm giving you a largish batch, but you can easily make a smaller batch.

1 28oz can of tomatoes. I like fire roasted crushed or petit diced. But, whatever format of tomatoes you like - go for it. If you buy whole tomatoes, either chop or hand crush them yourself.

2-3 cloves garlic -- mince fine, or I grate it on this very cool little grater my college roommate gave me once. I think roomie had another purpose in mind - but I manage to knick of bits of my fingers every time I use it -- making both of us happy.

olive oil

1 1/2 tsp salt/1/2 tsp pepper/3/4 tsp sugar/ * basil/ pinch of hot red pepper(to taste -- start the small amounts and add more as you make each batch so you know how hot you like it.)


Okay -- first, put water in a big pot for your pasta. Then start the sauce. Once the sauce is together, turn on the heat under the water.

Grate or finely mince the garlic. Put it in a small bowl with a bit of water to make a wetish paste.

in a cold saucepan, add in enough olive oil to not quite cover the bottom and toss in the wet garlic paste -- turn the heat on to med/high. When most of the water looks evaporated and the garlic is bubbling away (but not at all brown) add your tomatoes. Add all your seasonings.

If you are using dried basil, a table spoon or more is good. If you are using fresh basil, chop a handful of basil leaves. If you're using frozen basil - which I'll explain later - use 2-3 cubes.

When the sauce comes to a bubble, turn heat down to med/low. If you like your sauce thin, cover it. If you like it less watery, leave the lid off so some of the water can evaporate.

Cook your pasta. Drain. mix pasta and sauce together. Voila! dinner.

Variations: you can use fresh or canned tomatoes. If you use fresh, peel (dip for a count of 5-8 in boiling water and then into ice water) and chop the tomatoes --- discard as much of the seeds as you can. You can saute' veggies to add into the sauce -- The old lady likes squash. I've been known to saute' up mushrooms to add in. You can also add in precooked meat balls or browned sausage. Vodka is suppose to bring out flavors in tomatoes that other ingredients don't -- I've never tried it - but you could add a couple of table spoons of vodka and see what that does. You could also make the sauce a bit richer by adding a tablespoon of butter at the end.

Frozen Basil. For several years now, I've been growing my own basil. Because you need to manage the plants to keep them producing, I pinch off leaves through out the summer -- and if I'm not going to use them immediately, I chop them up, and fill an ice cube tray with them -- and add enough water to hold them together as an ice cube. Once they are frozen, I pop them out and store them in a freezer bag. I generally make enough of these cubes that I'm just running out when the new basil is sprouting up.

You can use this sauce on more or less any sort of pasta. I've added a bit of tomato paste to make it richer and used it for baked shells or lasagna. I've used it on noodle or tube pastas. I've also used it on tortelinis. You can keep the ingredients for this sauce on hand all the time -- and make a good meal very quickly. Throw in instant salad and rolls from the bakery - and you have a company worthy meal.

Oh yeah - a note on tomato paste. I love the flavor tomato paste adds. But, most of the time I don't use the whole little can. So, I put the rest in a ziploc type bag, and I make finger creases to portion it into approximate table spoons and freeze it. Then, I can pop out the "tablespoon" portions whenever I need it.