This sauce has been blogged twice (that I know of) but is so surprising, so easy and so good that I thought it deserved a repeat blogging.  Besides, I took all these pictures and had to do something with them :)  Right?

I found the recipe here and you should hop on over to see what the original looks like as I have rung my own changes on things.  That’s one of the beauties of this sauce (as though it didn’t have enough already) - it’s infinitely adaptable to occasion, need and taste.

You’ll need:

1 28-35 oz. can of whole, peeled tomatoes
1 medium yellow onion
1-2 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
5 tbls butter (real butter, not butter-like spread)

Here’s the cast of characters:

That’s it - nothing more complicated than that.

Open the can of tomatoes and pour into a saucepan.

I used a 28 oz can of tomatoes which only, barely made enough sauce for a pound of pasta.  Next time I’ll get a bigger can; the 35 oz. jobbie should do the trick!

Peel the onion and cut it in half.

The onion I used in the sauce is not the same one in the ingredients picture.  When I cut that one in half, I found it had gone quietly south, so I tossed it and used another.  As the new onion was very substantial, I cut it in quarters.

Peel and chop the garlic.

I used one clove this time, but will probably use two next time for a little more emphasis :)

Toss the onion and garlic into your saucepan of tomatoes and add (you can cut it up if you like) the butter.

Bring everything to a gentle simmer and lower the heat to keep it just at that point.  You really want this to be gentle because tomato sauce tends to be very…erm…athletic?  It can jump all over your stove top :)  Besides you want the flavors to meld and marry, not collide and crash.  Simmer, stirring occasionally (mash the tomatoes against the side of the pan with your spoon, to help break them down) for 45 minutes to an hour.

A little while before your sauce is done, put on a big pot of water for your pasta.

I love this shape for sauce.  It’s like a short, fat fusilli which I can’t seem to find in my local markets.  That’s probably just as well because me dealing with spaghetti-length curls covered with sauce is a recipe (heh) for much mess and stainage.

Okay, your pasta is ready and your sauce is done…well, except for one thing.  Remove the onion from your sauce.  The original recipe tells you to discard this, but I couldn’t bring myself to just throw it away, so I set it aside for later.

Drain your pasta, put it back in the pot, add the sauce and stir things around so everybody gets acquainted.  You can serve this with Parmesan cheese (which is heavenly!) but believe me, the sauce stand up very well all by its lone self.

One of my problems with sauce in jars is that it’s invariably too sweet for me.  I don’t want my tomato sauce to be a practical substitute for frosting or hot fudge.  I do realize that when tomatoes are very acidy, a little sugar can make a huge difference but we’re talking about a little sugar (for a can of tomatoes of the above size, if you thought they were too tart, I’d use no more than 1/2 tsp to correct the issue) not 1/2 a cup!  So making this sauce with no sugar suits me right down to the ground.  The taste is rich and fresh - not sweet.

Oh yes, about that onion?  I like to make a couple of slices of thick toast from Italian bread.  Butter them and put them on a plate.  Warm up your leftover onion in the nuker for about a minute (and if you were thinking ahead - which I wasn’t - you might have put a good spoonful of the sauce in with the onion when you set it aside), and spread over the toast.  Top with grated mozzarella or parmesan cheese, give it 30 seconds in the nuker and you’re ready to sit down and oink.  You can’t believe how delicious, succulent and sweet that onion has become for it’s hour simmering in the sauce.

No, there’s no picture of that because I was too hungry :)

Buon appetito!