MinCat's favourite pasta sauce

Somewhere in my time in the US, I realised that tomato sauce is REALLY easy to make - it just takes time. I usually make a huge batch that lasts for about four meals of two people each. It freezes very well, and lasts in the fridge up to a week (I've never been able to resist it longer.)

The basis is tomatoes and onions, with a ton of garlic. After that, toss in whatever you want. Obviously, the more veggies you put in, the more texture it will have; but that's not a bad thing, especially for vegetarian pasta. For pizza I recommend slicing things thinly or sticking to leaves and minced peppers, because that way it doesn't mound up on the pizza, ans leaves you free to add other toppings.

The recipe changes every time I make it, depending on what's in the fridge. The last time I used this:

• 8 medium tomatoes
• 3 medium onion
• 2 medium bell peppers (greens for very strong flavour, or red/orange/yellow for sweeter flavour), diced
• 2 bunches of spinach, torn
• 1 package mushrooms (I swear I'll get around to measuring these things one day), sliced
• 1 tbs dried basil
• 1 tbs dried oregano
• 1 tbs paprika (never smoked, but then I hate smoked paprika. Which is all I have in the kitchen right now, so there was none, sob)
• 20 cloves of garlic, peeled
• salt to to taste
• 1-2 tbs olive oil (up to you =)
• 2 boxes tomato puree (400g) (You can ditch this and use more fresh tomatoes, I ran out. Use about 6 more I'd say.)

Equipment: Large saucepan/stockpot, with a thick bottom. I use my pressure cooker!

Peel the onion and whizz them in the mixie or the food processor so they're a chunky paste. Heat the oil, and sauté the garlic for a few minutes before adding the onion paste. Whizz the tomatoes in the blender too, only take the bases of the stems out. Once the onion has stopped making your eyes water, add the mushrooms and peppers, stir for a minute, literally, and then add the spinach, tomatoes, tomato puree, spices, and salt, and stir a bit. Turn flame to minimum, cover and leave for about 5 minutes. Test to see if it needs more spices or salt, and if the spinach and mushrooms haven't released enough water to cover everything then add water to cover everything. Forget about it for at least an hour, if not an hour and a half. Stir occasionally, but otherwise forget about it.

The end result: you'll smell it. It will smell like pizza heaven. It will also turn a much darker red than it was at the beginning.

Deb also has a simple simple 40-min tomato sauce.