The Pennsylvania Tomato Sauce Massacre

I'm not sure if this title is even adequate to describe the cooking event of this weekend.  I recently started doing the Whole30 program for January and because you can't eat anything with added sugar, I realized that all of my pasta and marinara sauces I keep in my fridge for pizza and spaghetti related emergencies were out.  

Ha...let's be honest...you can't have spaghetti on Whole30 either...only spaghetti squash - and I can't imagine I'll find a Whole30 approved pizza anywhere either, since you can't eat gluten, or dairy, or fun.

Overall, I don't feel deprived, only inconvenienced, which is where this cooking adventure originated.  I was browsing on the web for an easy - no sugar - tomato sauce that I could keep on hand for my variety of tomato related recipes.  I came across this easy 4-Ingredient Tomato Sauce from Simple Bites.

Because Saturday was a beautiful day in Pittsburgh - I mean - 60+ degrees in January?? Come on! I decided to drag the fiancee on a morning walk to Trader Joe's to get the required six 28oz cans of tomatoes. I'm not sure if he realized I had essentially just dragged him out of bed and conned him into both doing my workout for the day with me, and dragging the world's heaviest brown paper bag two miles home.  Either way, it worked.

I find my kitchen to be well equipped, but who on earth has a bowl big enough to dump in 168 ounces of food to puree into oblivion without coating the entire counter with a fine layer of light red pulp?  NOT ME!  Thinking back on my mistakes, maybe I should have used my absolutely enormous wok I always forget I own.  I'm pretty sure I've never used it for any wok related activities...only for mixing.

Since this is my first post, I will note that the idea of me splattering the kitchen with a variety of food substance is something that will be a repeated trend.  I am probably the messiest cook ever.  In the process of making this sauce, I managed to splatter my sink/counter area with tomato puree, and then later in the cooking process, splattered my oven, walls, picture behind the oven, floor, back door, fiancee and kitten with molten lava tomato sauce straight from the pot.  I swear the pot was covered, with the exception of stirring.  I have no explanations.

Regardless, the result of my efforts was a thick spicy tomato/marinara sauce that I thought was as good, if not better than all the store bought stuff I've found and liked.  I actually ate about a cup with a spoon before it even cooled. Second mistake.

4-plus-some-Ingredient Tomato Sauce

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 4-5 teaspoons jarred minced garlic (I always prefer this to whole as my lack of knife skills are somewhat dangerous)
• 6 28-oz cans of diced tomatoes
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 2 small cans tomato paste
• 1.5 teaspoons onion powder
• 1.5 Tablespoons (or to taste) of each dried Basil and dried Oregano
• 1.5 Tablespoons (or to taste) of crushed red pepper

Instructions:

1. Set up your splash zones and warn the audience.
2. Pour cans of tomatoes into the LARGEST POSSIBLE BOWL YOU CAN FIND and puree with an immersion blender until smooth.
3. Heat a large, heavy pot over medium heat and add olive oil, when oil is hot, add garlic and stir continuously for a minute or two.  Do not allow the garlic to brown.
4. Add 1/2 cup of the tomato puree to the pot and stir into the garlic.  Let cook for about a minute to allow the oil and tomato to brown and caramelize slightly.
5. Add remaining tomato puree, salt, tomato paste, and spices.  Stir well.  Simmer on medium low heat for at least four hours.  Make sure you stir regularly during this step (every 20-30 minutes) to avoid the sauce burning at the bottom of the pan.
6. Remove from heat, let cool for at least 30 seconds before sticking the scalding spoon into your mouth to taste the sauce.  DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP.  Adjust spices to taste.
7. Cool more and then place into containers and storage bags.  Freeze any portion of sauce you will not be using within a week or so.

I used my fancy sauce to make a big batch of these cabbage rolls from They've Gone Paleo for my extended family to enjoy during the playoff games that evening.  I chose Italian sausage from the meat roulette and they were so good that my mother and I each had like three enormous rolls.  My little brother ate about five for breakfast the next day.  My dad looked at them like they were going to hurt him and pushed them around his plate for about 30 minutes.  Can't win 'em all.

Also, during the later making of the cabbage rolls, I somehow ended up covered literally head to toe in this sauce for the second time that day.  When I mentioned it, the fiancee (Tish), who had cleaned up my earlier debacles  shot back "Well then that makes two of us."  Shut up and eat your cabbage rolls and be glad you're marrying someone who cooks.