Quick Tomato Sauce

Quick Tomato Sauce

2 Tbsp unsalted butter
1/4 cup grated onion
1/4 tsp dried oregano
2 medium garlic cloves, minced
1 (28-ounce) can crushed tomatoes
1/4 tsp sugar
2 Tbsp coarsely chopped fresh basil leaves
1 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

1. Heat butter in medium saucepan over medium heat until melted.
2. Add onion, oregano, and 1/2 teaspoon table salt; cook, stirring occasionally, until liquid has evaporated and onion is golden brown, about 5 minutes.
3. Add garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds.
4. Stir in tomatoes and sugar; increase heat to high and bring to simmer. Lower heat to medium-low and simmer until thickened slightly, about 10 minutes.
5. Take sauce off heat, stir in basil and oil; season with salt and pepper. Serve.

Last night I tried a new recipe for spaghetti sauce. It's a recipe I got out of Cook's Illustrated (a magazine that was recommended to me by Liane, one of the best cooks in our church) and was super excited to try out. The goal of this recipe is to produce a fresh-tasting tomato sauce that can be made in the time it takes to cook spahetti.

The ingredients:

The author said to use the large holes of a box grater to grate the onion. Other than a few tears, I enjoyed this step; it's always nice to get to use one of my kitchen gadgets.

This is about a minute into step two. It smelled good.

This is what the onion looked like after it cooked for a while. Looking back on this now, I probably could have cooked the onions even a little bit longer but I don't think it really hampered the final product. At this point, I had added the garlic and it smelled even better.

After adding the tomatoes and sugar, you're supposed to bring the sauce up to a simmer. Be warned: it will splatter. I don't know why I never think of this when heating tomato sauce until I've got tomatoes on my wall; I guess I'm just a slow learner.

Here is the last step of mixing in the basil and oil.

The final product: the sauce was really good and seemed to get better with each taste. Even Tyler (who absolutely hates change) agreed that this was much better than our usual Prego.

The main issue I had with this recipe was not actually with the sauce but with the pasta. I decided to use Angel Hair pasta because Tyler likes it better. Of course, it has a shorter cooking time than regular spaghetti so it was done well before the sauce. I also have the inability to judge serving sizes of dried pasta. I either cook too little and we have to try to stretch it or I cook way too much. Last night I cooked way too much (seriously, you should see how much pasta I gave Tyler). On the whole, it was a successful meal and I will definitely be making this recipe again.