Slap-Together Sauce

The other night, I stood pondering what I should make for dinner. I had purchased a bunch of organic tomatoes that were on sale for ridiculously cheap ($1 a pint!).  I decided to make a homemade sauce with organic whole wheat pasta.

Ingredients:
2 pints organic grape tomatoes
4 large organic tomatoes, cut into small chunks
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 bay leaf

5-10 fresh basil leaves, finely chopped
2 teaspoons organic sugar
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon Penzey's Tuscan Sunset spice
1/2 teaspoon oregano
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon rosemary

pinch cayenne



3 organic potatoes, peeled and chopped
2 medium sized carrots, peeled and chopped
1 pimento pepper, chopped
1/2 large sweet potato, peeled and chopped
1/4 to 1/2 cup water


I heated up the cherry tomatoes and tomato chunks with a little organic olive oil.  Once they were heated up, I crushed them with a potato masher. They stewed for 10 minutes and I added the chopped garlic, bay leaf, sugar, and all of the spices. Keep cooking while you make the veggies.

In a separate pot, I cooked the veggies (potatoes, carrots, pepper, sweet potato) with the water (covered the pot) for 10-15 minutes on medium.  I added a few spoonfuls of the tomato mixture when the veggies got a little dry (remove bay leaf before scooping any tomato into your veggies).  I added a few more large spoonfuls of the tomato mixture to the veggies and pureed with an immersion blender.  You can add more or less water, whatever you like for consistency.  My sauce turned out really thick!

We had pasta the first night (picture below shows pasta with sauce and a sprinkle of nutritional yeast).  The second night we made quick pizzas (homemade sourdough bread sliced medium thickness. I put the sauce on top, some veggies & Daiya, non-dairy cheese- into the oven at 375 for 10 minutes and BAM! magical vegan pizza). Some veggies should be pre-cooked (onions, mushrooms) while avocado chunks, artichoke hearts and tomato slices are good to put on when you cook for the 10 minutes.  I only took pictures of the pasta though, sorry!