Tomato Sauce!

No matter what you call it (tomato sauce, pasta sauce, marinara, "red" sauce), it's something that I think every household goes through a lot of.  In our house, spaghetti and meatballs is a weekly staple, as is homemade pizza, so we use a TON of it.  Finally, five years into my "domestic-hood", and in keeping with our ongoing efforts to "healthify" things, I have decided to start making large batches of the stuff to have in the freezer and amp-up the veggie count in something we use twice weekly.  Plus, having a veggie-hating toddler, I'm always desperate for ways to sneak foods into him that pack a super-nutritional punch.

There's no real "recipe" for what we do, it's more of a method.  First, you've gotta do a big ingredient round-up.

- You'll need some kind of base (tomatoes, "durh") and we've found that pretty much any mix of the following will work well: canned tomato sauce (whatever's cheapest or a personal fave), canned tomatoes, and tomato paste.

- Then, gather as many different veggies as you can find, it doesn't even matter if you really LIKE a few of them or not, because in the end you won't even be able to tell that they're there!  It's usually my goal to get as many colours and varieties as possible in there because it's important to "eat the rainbow" and we all know, "variety is the spice of life", but if you only have a few lying around, it's fine.  Seriously, ANYTHING GOES on pasta sauce day.  Cut 'em, cook 'em up 'til soft, whiz 'em up in the blender and set 'em aside.

- Next you'll need your spices and special extras that make it "yours".   Oregano, basil and thyme are staples here, as well as a few bay leaves (try to find and remove them before bottling, though!).  I found out that my bonus-Mom's sister puts PINEAPPLE in her spaghetti sauce - tried it once and have never looked back since.  We blend that up along with our veggies and it gives the sauce a nice sweet note.  We like a bit of heat too, so ground black pepper and cayenne go in there, too.  Really use your creativity here, whatever you "think" might be good, probably will.  Dump some parmesan cheese in there, or even some booze, lol (it'll cook down, which brings me to the next step)...

- Throw it ALL into your biggest pot and simmer it on low for, oh, "a long time"...  Two to four hours?  The whole day?  As much time as you've got, but keep on the stirring, every 20-30 mins or so.  Cleaning burnt tomatoes off the bottom of your pot is never fun.  I despise cleaning BIG dishes for many reasons, but that's another rant for another day. ;)

- Bottle it up in some clean jars, plasticware, whatever you've got.  We went out and bought some 500mL bottles specifically for our last batch, they were pricier than I would have liked, but an investment for sure because we will re-use them and they're microwave safe (for when you forget to defrost it in advance).  I'm sure there's a way to safely "can" this stuff for shelf-storage... But we're not set up for that (yet), and recently purchased a deep-freeze so we have lots of space to fill, so my tutorial ends here. :)  

I'd love to hear YOUR suggestions on personalized pasta sauce, or at the very least, let me know how it goes if I inspired you to whip up your own batch!