Fumbling Toward Culinary Talent: Tomato Sauce

My son is at college and wanted my recipe for pasta sauce. So I texted it to him, and I realized I never did a post about the sauce I make all the time. 

It's a mainstay of my kitchen. If you wanted to make it just for one person, all the ingredients would be cut in half. 

Ingredients

2 cans of crushed tomatoes - I prefer the crushed toms (short for tomatoes) from Aldi

1 yellow onion, chopped finely 

3-8 cloves of garlic (depending on how much garlic you want to go with), chopped finely

Dried basil 

Dried oregano (I typically use these in a 2 to 1 ratio)

4-6 TB of butter (usually the Aldi Irish butter)

2-3 bay leaves

Smidge of red pepper flakes

Extra virgin olive oil

Kosher salt

Freshly cracked black pepper

Process

Cover the bottom of a large pot with olive oil and heat it to a little under medium-high heat. Add in the onion, bay leaves, salt, and pepper and cook for approximately 10 minutes until the onion is tender. Adjust the heat to just under medium. Add in the garlic and red pepper flakes and sauté for 1-2 minutes. 

Dump in the crushed toms, add the butter, add the basil and oregano, and kick the heat down to somewhere between medium-low and low. Add salt and pepper. 

Partially cover the pot with a lid, so there's just a crack on the side. I usually cook it down anywhere from 2-4 hours while checking on it from time to time and tasting, so it's just cooking gently. 

In some cases, instead of just using onion, I sometimes use a mirepoix by adding one stalk of celery and one carrot, both of which are chopped finely. 

Or I'll add in cooked Italian sausage or ground beef.