Today is Sauce Day. Every month or so, I make a pot of tomato sauce. I use some the week I make it and freeze some, too. There's a good reason the Italians have a routine of making tomato sauce – it tastes better than jarred sauce, and you can serve it with anything! Vegetables, meats, chicken, fish, bread, and it's even good on the side with scrambled eggs.
Do you make a multi-purpose sauce like tomato sauce that you can freeze so it's on hand for when you need it? If you have a delicious idea, let me know. I would love to hear about it.
If you need an easy idea, try making tomato sauce. It's simple: sauté some fresh garlic in a bit of olive oil, then add tomatoes and let them simmer into a savory sauce. You can also add basil, oregano, or thyme, which is also very tasty.
When you want to mix things up, try adding sautéed onions or crushed red pepper to your sauce. Don't be afraid to experiment. This week, I had some red peppers I worried would go to waste, so I sautéed them, added them to the tomato sauce, used an immersion blender, and pulsed a few times to blend the peppers into the sauce. The result was a delicious twist on traditional tomato sauce, and it's definitely an idea I'll use again.
Here's a quick tip on timing. When you're short on time, remember you can cook in stages. Breaking up a recipe into manageable steps makes cooking easier. I often cook in the evening and at least start a recipe, like sautéing onions or peppers to add to tomato sauce the next day. Then, the next day, I can let the sauce simmer, purée it, and it's ready to serve with pasta.
Add a simple first course for a nearly effortless dinner. For me, a simple course with Pasta del Maresciallo last night, since I was out of lettuce for a salad, was sliced cucumbers with EVOO, chives from the garden, and a pinch of Celtic salt.
You can read more about serving in courses in this post, and If you need a simple tomato sauce recipe, you can find one here.
