A Tomato Sauce For All Seasons, and Why Your Freezer Is Important

I've been thinking more and more about the strange things we consume these days. Our grocery stores are filled with products that are highly processed, often times not even resembling food itself. Most grocery stores only contain somewhere in the neighborhood of 5% of their inventory in whole unprocessed foods. Maybe that doesn't strike anyone else as being strange, but it is somewhat alarming to me. What would happen if tomorrow stores no longer carried any processed foods? I will even make a few exceptions. Keep the cheese, dried pasta and noodles, bread (so long as the ingredient list doesn't contain strange unrecognizable substances), and a few choice condiments and oils. Aside from that, you are looking at vegetables, fruits, grains, meat, seafood, eggs, butter, milk, salt, sugar, etc. What do you do? I know what I would do, but I'm reminded more and more these days that I am in the minority. Let's up the ante a little, shall we? What if you couldn't eat at restaurants? Now don't get me wrong, I love restaurants, but for arguments sake, what would you do?

The point is that I will continue to espouse cooking as a fundamentally important skill and activity. It allows you the opportunity to eat real food, instead of a warped science experiment passed off as an edible substance. Is there any debate about the superiority of a diet composed of unprocessed or minimally processed food? The only debate might come from the people who are selling you sugar laden breakfast cereal with claims of superior health benefits. When did we all become stupid enough to believe that cereal with marshmallows in it is a great choice for health? Really? I happen to think marshmallows are pretty tasty, but I've never put one in my mouth thinking it was rounding out deficiencies in my diet. If you ever want to have a good time, wander the aisles of a supermarket and notice how many processed foods have labels claiming righteous health benefits (if you don't at least have a slight chuckle you may have been lost to processed food forever). It seems strange that with all this 'healthy' food at our fingertips we are getting fatter and unhealthier as a nation. How did we get here? In my humble opinion, we got here because we don't know how to cook, or are too lazy to do so. I know you are busy, most people are, but cooking can and should be incorporated into daily life. I promise you that the closer you get to your food, the happier you will become.

With all this in mind, I can think of no more striking an example of our separation from good food than the average American freezer. Open up most people's freezers and what do you find? Typically it is cornucopia of processed foods, in colorful packages designed to blind you to what really lies inside. Often times these products are laden with preservatives. Let's ponder that for a second. Hopefully it just hit you that a freezer is an amazing piece of technology that can actually safely preserve food. So instead of using it as a storage bay for for the byproducts of a chemical laboratory, why not fill it with food that you cooked for the times when life is incredibly busy. I suppose it would only be fair to reveal the contents of my freezer. Sweet potato gnocchi, tomato sauce, chicken stock, speculoos ice cream, pork and leek potsticker dumplings, pie crust dough, and ice cubes. All of those things are homemade when I had time, and ready to go when I don't have a surplus of time to cook.

As a gift to you, in your quest to reclaim your freezer and your sanity, I give you my recipe for tomato sauce. It freezes well, and could last months, though it never does in my house. It can be stored in small containers that allow you to use only what you need. I use it with pasta, to braise meats in, with vegetables, in soups for flavor. It is awesome if I do say so myself. I will right a future post about how to sauce pasta, because it is one of the single easiest home cooking errors to fix.

Tomato Sauce

Ingredients:

4 28 oz. cans of good Italian style tomatoes (I use LaValle)

1 small carrot (finely grated, or chopped super fine)

1 medium onion (finely chopped)

4-8 cloves of garlic chopped (depending on how much you like garlic)

some herbs (fresh basil or thyme is great, dried oregano and thyme is also acceptable)

1/2 tsp. dried red pepper flakes

salt

3/4 cup of olive oil

(I am not a great recipe writer so bear with me)

1. In a small pot warm a 1/2 cup of olive oil over low heat. Add the red pepper flakes and whatever herbs you are going to use. (A big fat handful of fresh basil, or about a half teaspoon each of dried thyme and oregano). Let the red pepper and herbs cook over very low heat for about 10 minutes, then turn off the heat and let it steep and cool.

2. Heat a large pot over low heat. Add a 1/4 cup of olive oil. Add the onion and a pinch of salt, and allow to slowly saute without getting brown. Translucent and soft is what you want. After five minutes, add the carrot (this adds sweetness to the sauce that cuts the acidity of the tomatoes. You could also add a bit of honey or sugar at the end if you don't have a carrot), and continue to sweat for another five minutes over low heat. Add the garlic and cook for about two more minutes, making sure not to burn the garlic, but allowing its aroma to begin to perfume the kitchen.

3. Add the tomatoes. Here is where you have some choices. You can add all the tomatoes and crush them up in the pot with a large spoon or potato masher. If you are lucky enough to have a food mill, grind them up right into the pot.

4. Bring the sauce up to a low boil, then turn it down to a low simmer and let it cook for about 30 minutes. It all depends on how watery the tomatoes are, so it could only take 20 minutes, or up to 45 minutes to bring the sauce together.

5. Taste the sauce, and finish with a little salt if necessary, and a pinch of good dried oregano, or fresh parsley. Store in the freezer for up to 6 months, or in the fridge for a few days. Enjoy.