Cooking Tuesday XI. The best tomato sauce for pasta

Hi everyone! This week I'll tell you how to make a good tomato sauce for pasta. My family is Italian, even though I don't eat most of the Italian food. Until a couple of years ago I didn't like the tomato sauce, lasagna, raviolis and I'm not in love with pizza. I still don't like ravioles and only eat some lasagnas but I can eat pasta with tomato sauce and no parmesan cheese (which was a big no for me, I didn't like pasta if it didn't have cheese in it). We always make the tomato sauce at home and I think it's much tastier than those you can buy at the grocery store so I'll leave you the recipe for it :)

Ingredients

• One bottle of tomato paste (750ml)*
• Half an onion
• One garlic clove
• Half a pack of dried tomatoes
• One big tomato
• Salt to taste
• Mushrooms (optional)
• One big carrot (optional)
• A fistful of basil

*The other day I found this post of @awesome-seven that shows you how to make your own tomato paste.

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First we heat a bit of oil in a pot while we chop the onion. When we finish chopping the onion we put it in the pot. Then crush the garlic clove and add it too. Wash and peel the tomato, leave the seeds out and cut it into pieces. Wash and peel the carrot too, cutting it in slices, likewise with the mushrooms. One we finish, we add the dried tomatoes, pieces of tomato, basil, salt (we have one at home that is seasoned for meat and instead use this one since it gives it a nice touch) and mushrooms to the pot until they brown.

When I made it I had no carrot or mushrooms and that's why they're not in the picture

Once vegetables have browned we add the tomato paste and bring it to a boil.

Beware, the tomato sauce will start splashing everywhere and make a mess. To make less of a mess you can partly cover the pot, don't cover completely because then it will spill over the sides. The sauce should be cooked for at least an hour but if you're in a hurry then it can be cooked for half an hour. And we have our tomato sauce for pasta, it serves four :)

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I hope you liked this recipe and try it at home :) Leave any question, improvement or request for a recipe you'd like to know for next week in the comments. Until next time!