Tomato sauce

For most of my life, tomato sauce was made for me, either from a jar or at a restaurant. As much as liked what I got from a jar, it wasn't really great. So I end up making the jar sauce more exciting by adding sauteed mushrooms, soy sauce, peppers and whatnot. At restaurants, I often find their tomato sauce either too acidic or just bland. So for most of my life, tomato sauce makes and easy dinner, but not a very exciting one.

Then one day, I ran out of store-bought sauce. I had a big can of peeled tomatoes so I thought, maybe I should just try making my own? I wanted to keep things as simple as possible and the ingredients list as short as possible. So I diced an onion, minced a couple of cloves are garlic and sauteed them in some butter. Yes, butter is fatty, but butter also makes the sauce taste smoother and less acidic, which is what I'm afraid of. Anyways, after the onion and garlic have cooked for a few minutes, I pour in the can of tomatoes. You can get the can with crushed tomatoes or whole tomatoes. Using whole tomatoes requires a bit more work, but not much. Anyways, once the sauce has cooked a bit, if you're using whole tomatoes, just start mashing them to bits with your spoon. This is great if you like your sauce chunky. If you like your sauce super smooth, you can run the sauce through a blender or use an immersion blender. Season with salt and pepper to taste and cook until you get the desired consistency. I will confess now that I also seasoned with soy sauce to taste. I know it's weird, but I kind of like it that way.

After having made this, I can never go back to store-bought sauce without turning my nose up at it! It was SO good! It was packed full of bright, fresh tomato flavor without being too acidic. Hubby loved it too and we both kept eating more and more of it until it was gone. Hubby likes a sprinkling of freshly grated parmesan on top, which is also really good, but certainly isn't necessary. So if you've never tried making your own tomato sauce before, I highly recommend it!