I’ve been on a mission of late to learn how to make basic foods from scratch. My first couple of attempts at making a salsa turned out okay, but tonight I had much better luck making a home made pasta. To put it in Norcal terms, it was hella good.
Here’s how to make it. Basically, it’s about two things:
- the tomato base
- the additions
We’ll start with the additions.
The Additions
This is what really makes the sauce special and unique. Look in your pantry and your vegetable drawers and see what you want to add to the mix. I chopped up and fried onions and garlic, then added mushrooms and a can of pitted and sliced black olives.
You could easily chop up some zucchinis, spinach, corn, whatever.
Moving on.
The Tomato Base
Add a can of tomato sauce and a can of diced tomatoes to the onion-garlic-pantry-emptying mix you’ve got going on. You’ll want some of that water from the diced tomatoes. I find recipes with specific measurements either too boring or too rigid so see what works for you. We’re not baking a cake here so you’ve got a lot of leeway.
I used a full can of tomato sauce with half the can of diced tomatoes, because that’s all I had. More would have probably made a lighter sauce (not as thick). Think Ragu vs Prego.
I would have added oregano had I had it but instead added some thyme, red cayenne pepper (quite a bit of this stuff because it is GOOD) and added salt liberally. Oh yeah, and a generous portion of shredded cheese to thicken it.
The Final Result
That’s about it. Heat it up for a while, low-medium heat will do. Add it to your pasta, put on Netflix streaming and enjoy yourself a wonderful dinner.
a meal with basil 