Super-easy tomato sauce, and how to make it easier.

As long as we're talking about my love for fresh, unprocessed food (see yesterday), here's a recipe for super-easy, delicious homemade marinara sauce, and then a few modifications for when you are feeling particularly time-crunched or half-assed. I promise you: once you make fresh marinara sauce the first time, you will realize that it is (a) super easy and (b) way tastier than sauce from a jar. You won't look back.

First, here's a great basic recipe from a great Food Network cookbook called How to Boil Water (http://amzn.com/0696226863):

Quick Marinara Sauce
From Food Network Kitchens

Prep Time:5 min
Cook Time:35 min
Level: Easy
Serves: about 6 cups.

Ingredients
•1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
•1/4 medium onion, diced (about 3 tablespoons)
•4 cloves garlic, sliced
•3 (28-ounce) cans whole, peeled, tomatoes, roughly chopped
•3 sprigs fresh thyme
•1 small bunch fresh basil, leaves chopped
•2 teaspoons kosher salt
•Freshly ground black pepper

Directions
Heat the oil in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Saute the onion and garlic, stirring, until lightly browned, about 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes with about half of their juices (discarding the rest), the herb sprigs and basil and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered for about 25 to 30 minutes or until thickened.

Remove and discard the herb sprigs. Stir in the salt and season with pepper, to taste. Serve or store covered in the refrigerator for up to 3 days, or freeze for up to 2 months.

Sounds easy, right? But let's say you're in the position I found myself in this Friday evening: you need to be out of the house in 30 minutes, you need dinner, and you don't have time to cook both pasta and sauce. The solution? Don't cook it. Just grab 1 box of pasta, two cans of tomatoes, 2 cloves of garlic, the olive oil, the salt and pepper, whatever herbs you have around (dried if necessary), and some vinegar (I like balsamic). Then, do the following:

1.) Get the pasta water on the stove so that you can cook the pasta while you make the sauce.

2.) Pour the tomatoes into a big bowl and crush them with your hands. You can use whole, unpeeled tomatoes or diced tomatoes. I prefer the former because, the less that's been done to the tomatoes, the more flavorful they are. (Make sure you buy them without added sugar, salt, or anything else you don't need.)

3.) Chop up the garlic and throw it in with the tomatoes (or use a garlic press).

4.) Add the oil, 1-2 tablespoons of vinegar, the herbs, and salt and pepper to taste. Mix it all together well with a big spoon.

5.) By now, the pasta will probably be cooked. Drain it, pour the pasta back into the pot, add the sauce, and stir it all together on low heat for a minute or two.

That's it. It definitely tastes better if you cook it (as in the FN recipe), but even using the half-assed method above, it tastes better than sauce from a jar.