A Saucy Saturday

On Saturday I decided to make marinara sauce for my girlfriend (M.) and her daughter. From scratch. This meant skinning a good number of tomatoes from my mom's garden. 

Preparing to boil tomatoes for the sauce.

Boiling and peeling tomatoes? Easier than I'd ever imagined. It takes more time waiting for the water to boil.

Easy peelsy after boiling.

Air..need air...also eyes. Eyes and air.

I got the recipe from this website with several modifications. I put only a couple of cloves in and took them out after the first half-hour of simmering. M. doesn't care very much for garlic in pasta, but she felt it needed it at least a little. No red wine, no honey(?), no crushed red pepper, no marjoram, no bay leaf on hand. I unwittingly compensated by adding a tablespoon of oregano instead of a teaspoon. Didn't ruin the sauce, but I won't do that again. 

Long live the heirloom.

Caption ideas include "Boy, this is going to be a lot of sauce!" and "What the hell am I thinking?!?"

Onion time? More like funion time! Eh? Eh? Am I right?

Here we gooooo!

My only other mistake that mattered was not accounting for how long it would take to get the sauce to actually be a sauce. I learned about reducing a sauce and kept the heat going, with pretty good results.

Waiting for the sauce to boil. Now to make my own pasta!

Just kidding!

I was lucky. There was nothing I could do that would have either burned the sauce or scalded the pot, no matter how hard it seemed I was trying.

And now the boil!

(best Highlander voice) "Now begins the simmering!"

Not only were the tomatoes from my mom's garden, but so was the basil.

 Stirring it in..

Did I mention that I had to cook this for a long time?

Hoping to reduce the sauce and avoid earning the nickname "Soupy George."

Once the sauce was thick enough, I added the pasta, and we were good to go in minutes.

Thank God this is almost over. I mean Yay, food!

With ten tomatoes of various sizes, I had enough sauce to serve three people and have enough left over for another dinner tomorrow.

Dinner is served. Finally!

I think I'm a little too impressed with myself, but I have to admit it was a pretty smooth (if time-spanning) job with pretty good results.