Tomato Basil Sauce

There are two distinct periods of my life as the primary cook in my household, the first 4 years, I refer to as" the cream of something and rice period", where most nights consisted of some sort of chicken and rice casserole with a cream of something soup and some sort of frozen vegeables. This time consisted of a lot meals that lacked a lot of flavor and took very little technique, in fact, I'm quite sure my Sous Chefs can already cook better than I did during that period.

During this same period, I routinuely would attempt to make homemade pasta sauce, there were a number of bad sauces, there were a number of horrible sauces, things that I have now learned should never be seen in the same pot together, were put together. But this sauce, is not one of the horindous, today's sauce is an example of how knowledge is power.

For today's sauce, you will need:

1/4 cup olive oil
3 gloves garlic chopped
2 cans San Marzano tomatoes (this is a must, do not try to make a sauce with any other type of canned tomato)
2 tsp Beef Boulioun
Salt
Pepper
Fresh Basil, chopped




Start by heating a stock pot over medium heat.

While your pot is heating, empty the cans of tomatoes into a bowl. I personally think the whole tomato with its seeds make the sauce too watery, so individually, I squeeze each tomato over the sink to get out most of the seeds. Depending on your preference of tomato size, you may also wish to blend or puree your tomateso to a less chunky consistency, for today's use, I wanted tomato chunks. Sit aside.

Once the pan is heated, at the olive oil, and when that is heated, add your garlic, stirring for about 1 minute, until fragrant.

Now you can add the tomatoes from earlier, along with some salt and pepper to taste and the beef bouillon. Let that heat a bit, then add in your fresh basil. Let that simmer for 20 minutes or so, stirring occasionally.

Tomorrow, I'll show you what you can do with your fresh ricotta and tomato basil sauce.