Do you make your own Spaghetti Sauce?

Ingredients

One large can (29 oz) tomato puree
One small can (6 oz) tomato paste
One large onion
One clove of garlic (The original recipe didn't have garlic. I think they were holding out on me.)
One tsp sugar
One tbs basil
Salt (tsp)
One tbs oregano (optional)
Water
Olive oil

1. In a large pot, empty the large can of tomaro puree.
2. Add three-quarters to one full can of water. Stir.
3. Throw in salt and sugar.
4. If you're using fresh basil, chop and throw into pot. For dried basil, just throw in. This is where you'd add the oregano, if you use it.
5. Stir.
6. In a large skillet, heat olive oil.
7. Dice the onion and throw into the olive oil.
8. Dice the garlic clove and throw into the olive oil.
9. Cook until onion is clear and softish.
10. Start adding the tomato paste a clump at a time. Have 6 oz of water handy. Throw in the paste, add a relatively equal amount of water. Stir until the paste is dissolved.
11. Keep adding the paste and the water and let cook until the mixture is steaming.
12. Add this mixture to the puree mixture.
13. Stir and cover.
14. Cook for about thirty minutes. Then uncover slightly so that the sauce can thicken. Cook at least 30 to 40 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Like I said. Simple. Not fancy. I hope you enjoy.

Finally, a recipe!

Replying to self, that was a useful thread for me, I should play with all that some more.

People have different lives and some memories are truncated in people's youths.

I faintly remember one grandmother - the other very many years long gone before I was born- who died in the early fifties when she was 82 or so, and not into recipe giving. I was approaching ten.

Be so kind as not to put a burden on jcboy's grandmother.

I get it you mean that elders should share. A lot of elders would like to but interest is often not all that high, since people are living their own lives. I'm not complaining for myself, I like my family that is far away, but interest in my recipes, nah, and I don't blame them a bit.

Some of us learned to cook in a kind of self defense.

Thanks mucho! I’ll be giving that recipe a try later in the week and will let you know how it turns out.

You know a funny thing that I remember. When I was a little kid we use to have Sunday dinners with my grandparents, sometimes my grandfather’s brother and his wife were there. Everyone loved my grandmother’s sauce and she wouldn’t part with that recipe for anything, especially didn’t want her sister in law to have it.

That’s kind of how they were; it was theirs and only their recipe and nobody else was going to have it.

So was the sister in law from some place else? Villages matter.

I don’t remember her that well, her name was Celcila, my grandfather’s Brother was Tony and she was his second wife. I was really young, when they spoke in English it was with a heavy New York accent, and when they didn’t want me to know what they were talking about they spoke in Italian

I just whipped together a batch of tomato sauce. Was it in my plans for tonight? No. I was gonna take a nap.

The power of suggestion is, well, mighty powerful.

haha, I'll bet it was good too! I'm still getting over this flu so I haven't done any grocery shopping, had the Puerto Rican pick up din din on his way home from work

It's still cooking. My apartment smells wonderful.

Uh....

What time is dinner?

Because I can be there in about 10 hours!

There's plenty left. I'm making chicken parmagiana tomorrow.

I can't imagine spaghetti sauce not having garlic.

I usually make some form of battuto -

http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/04/how-to-make-battuto-italian-cooking-aromatics-carrots-celery-garlic.html

But sometimes lately, I have all sorts of leftover sauces in the freezer (chile verde, chipotle in adobo mixed with other stuff) that even I don't know what I'm up to at the time, some kind of cross over playing.

Braized aromatics.

I do that with the veggies that go into my frijoles charros: green onions, cilantro, tomatoes and jalapeños.

mmmmmmm, good..

Do you have a good pizza dough recipe? I've never made one I want to make again. My husband likes thin and crispy and I like the Pizza Hut dough - soft and chewy and thick.

I've a few - I once tried a recipe via Jamie Oliver posted by Izzie that I liked - I think I need to try that one again, it had more oil in it than am used to - but I usually just use Carol Field's pizza alla napoletana, with varying results since I tend to vary myself, re timing, temperature, flours, yeast, and whether I freeze dough, and so on. Plus I save articles on pizza made in revered kitchens in Naples but fail to try to emulate them, or even reread them (I just like pizza porn!) not having a major woodburning oven and all that, much less the right flour et al.

Thing is, you can make a thin crust or thick, chewy or not - I like thin, sort of chewy, and crisp too, sort of a crapshoot the way I cook. There are wiser pizza makers than I am. I think I've made thin out of born to be thick dough by breaking the gluten down somewhat with my handy rolling pin..

So never mind me - here's a pizza primer from Fresh Loaf.com:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/recipes/pizza

aha, I copied her recipe from her earlier book earlier on a2k:

http://able2know.org/topic/140119-1#post-3869685