mama urchin

• 4 28.2-ounce cans of diced tomatoes (do not drain)
• 6 T olive oil
• 10 large cloves garlic, chopped
• 1-3 T kosher salt
• 1/4 c lightly packed dried basil

Heat the oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-low heat.
Add the garlic. Cook, stirring often, until the garlic is golden and softened (don’t let it burn), 5 to 10 min.

Pour in the tomatoes with their juices.
Bring to a boil over medium high, stirring frequently, and then reduce the heat to a simmer.

Add the salt (I start with 2 T) and basil and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the sauce has reduced and thickened. This could take as few as 20 minutes or as much as two hours. Mine usually clocks in around one hour, maybe a little more.

Now is the time to make this sauce taste the way you want. Before adding anything taste it first, you may need to add some more salt or even some sugar — if you use good quality tomatoes you generally shouldn’t need to use any sugar. We like garlic so I often add a cube or two of frozen garlic scape pesto from the summer. Chopped sun or oven-dried tomatoes would be yummy. Certainly any herbs you particularly love would be welcome.

The next step is to divide the sauce into your containers of choice. I generally go with zip-top bags filled with two cups of sauce — a jar of pasta sauce has just over three cups of sauce. You should get about 14 cups from this recipe. Let it cool a little and then off to the freezer and you’ll have homemade sauce for about seven meals. So to compare:

Muir Glen Pasta Sauce = $0.17/per ounce*
Homemade Pasta Sauce = $0.12/per ounce** (and it tastes better too)

*($4.29 for 25.5 ounce jar)
**($2.79 per 28oz can Muir Glen Diced Tomatoes, $1.19 per 1/4c jar of basil from Penzey’s, $1.50 for the garlic, olive oil, and salt = $13.85 for 112 ounces)