Recipe: Homemade Pasta Sauce

Sometimes, meal planning in the Cooper Home falls through the cracks. And, like many of you, I stand at a mostly empty fridge at 5 pm wondering what the heck I’m making for dinner.

It usually comes down to two options: Pizza Night (self-explanatory) or Hodge Podge Night (a conglomeration of left-overs, random pantry and/or freezer items, along with fresh ingredients on the verge of going bad).

Sometimes Hodge Podge Night is kinda gross. But other times, Hodge Podge Night gives birth to a surprisingly delicious recipe and creates the illusion you planned this all along.

This is THAT.

For all of you who are rolling your eyes right now because you just served jarred sauce to your family, IT’S FINE. YOU ARE FINE. SERVE JARRED SAUCE IF YOU LIKE IT. I usually have that in my pantry, too, for quick dinner nights. There is therefore no condemnation for those who buy jarred sauce. #balance

But pasta sauce is one of the many things I used to think I HAD to buy in a jar because I had no idea how easy it was to make it from scratch. This sauce will make you rethink your Prego. It’s simple, it’s delicious, and the whole thing is done in about the same amount of time it takes your pasta to cook.

Ingredients:

• Extra virgin olive oil (enough to cover the bottom of your pan. I used a huge pan, so I used a lot of olive oil)
• 3 cloves garlic, minced or finely chopped
• 1 teaspoon basil, chopped (I used dried, but fresh is so much better)
• 1 teaspoon oregano, chopped (I used fresh)
• 1 teaspoon thyme, chopped (I used fresh)
• 28 oz diced tomatoes, pureed or not*
• 1/2 cup red wine (I used Pinot Noir) (Also, I did not measure this. I just poured. If you like more or less, go crazy. But don’t omit this. The red wine adds a fantastic layer of flavor.)
• 4 oz goat cheese, crumbled
• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Warm the oil in a pan, toss in garlic and stir until fragrant, being careful not to burn it, about one minute.
I also threw in the basil here because it was dry and I wanted to flavor the oil. But if you use fresh, throw it in at the end. If you are using all dry herbs, then throw them all in here.

2. Stir in tomatoes (*I pureed them for about 2 seconds in the blender before I poured them in because my kids pick out every tomato chunk. Drives me nuts, the kids and the picking out of the chunks. If you like chunks, don’t puree.)

3. Stir in red wine. Bring to a boil and and then simmer, uncovered, until it reduces a little (maybe 5 or 10 min)

4. Add a dash of salt and a few grinds of pepper, and taste it.  Yum!  But wait, because the next step will be soooo good.

5. Stir in goat cheese and fresh herbs. Taste again. Add more salt and pepper if needed.

6. Marvel at your amazing invention.

7. Take a picture and send it to your friends. Post it on social media venue of choice.

8. Serve over pasta. I added mine right into a pot and stirred it up.

9. Watch your family lick their plates.

10. Scratch “pasta sauce” off your grocery list, because you probably don’t want to buy it after this.

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You know what else sometimes falls through the cracks?

This blog.

I just discovered that a rough draft post entitled “Weekend Links {20}” has been sitting here, all published and such, since March 5.

Oops.

So, the backstory is that sometimes, as I find interesting articles, I copy them into a draft post to be used in the upcoming Weekend Links. Well, apparently, the week before March 5, I was hopeful that I’d publish Weekend Links {20}. So hopeful, in fact, that I scheduled it to automatically publish on Saturday morning at 7 am.

In that post, I dropped exactly one interesting article and no commentary or pictures or anything.

When Saturday morning arrived, I was lying in bed at around 8 am (pre-caffienated) when, suddenly, I remembered the unfinished post that was scheduled to publish. I jumped out of bed, rushed to my computer, and laughed long and hard that the email subscribers received the weird mystery post in their inbox. Then, I deleted it from the blog and went about my day.

Or so I thought.

Just today (two weeks later), I came here to write this pasta sauce post and saw I never actually deleted it. So, not only did the weird mystery post go out to the subscribers, but it’s been sitting here on the front page of my blog for two weeks.

Classy.

I’m sorry for the confusion.

I hope I can make it up to you with this delicious recipe.