Marinara Sauce

Notes

So simple.

• Taken and adapted from a cookbook by Giada De Laurentiis.
• You will want to cook this in a pot with a lid and a thick bottom. If you use a thin-bottomed pot it will burn the sauce for sure. Burnt sauce is really hard to scrub out of a pot.
• If you don't already have one, you need a splatter screen.

Ingredients

• 2 28oz cans of crushed tomatoes
• ⅓C olive oil
• 2 carrots, peeled
• 1 onion, sliced
• 2 celery ribs, cleaned and the white ends trimmed off (just wanna use the green)
• 1 red bell pepper
• Garlic
• Dried oregano (I just pour it in. Probably ⅓ to ½C.)
• 2 bay leaves (the ones from Morton & Bassett are the best and well worth the extra $$)
• Red wine (I just grab a cheap six-pack of little bottles)
• Kosher salt

Directions

1. Cut up the veggies and cook them, covered, over medium heat in olive oil a bit. Not enough to brown the onion, though.
2. While they are cooking, cut the bell pepper in half, remove the seeds, and roast each half over the flame from your stove (you do have a gas stove, right?).
3. Slice the bell pepper and add it along with the oregano and garlic (I use the minced stuff from Costco and I use a lot--two or three heaping tablespoons) to the veggies and stir.
4. Add the crushed tomatoes and a few splashes of red wine to the mixture and stir.
5. Set to simmer at the lowest temperature you can. You do not want a tomato sauce to burn at the bottom of the pot.
6. Stick two bay leaves in the sauce. Leave a little bit of them sticking out so you can remove them later.
7. This is important: use a splatter screen--do not cover with a lid. This is going to reduce the water in the sauce so you don't end up with water on your plate under the spaghetti.
8. Simmer for an hour or two.
9. Turn off the heat, remove the bay leaves, and use your want mixer to pureé the veggies.
10. Add kosher salt to taste (at least 2 tsp).