Homemade Tomato Sauce

I started making homemade tomato sauce a couple of  years ago using fresh tomatoes from my garden. I loved the taste so much more than store-bought tomato sauces but sometimes I just couldn’t find the time to go through the process of removing the skin and seeds from all the tomatoes. So, instead of forgoing homemade sauce for store sauce when I was short on time, I started using canned tomatoes. It’s so fast and still better than store-bought!

Ingredients

• Pam Cooking Spray
• 1 –  28 oz. can diced tomatoes with the juice drained
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 teaspoon Oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon Italian seasoning
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 2 bay leaves

Drain tomatoes and pulse in blender or food processor. Don’t liquify them, they should still be slightly lumpy.

Spray a large pot pot with pam and saute garlic over medium heat for about a minute. Don’t allow it to brown. Add tomatoes, tomato paste, oregano, Italian seasoning, salt, brown sugar and bay leaves. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low, cover and simmer 1 hour. To speed things along you can cook it just until desired consistency but I like to simmer it longer to give the flavors time to mingle.

Remove bay leaves and celery and serve.
Variations:

Saute these additions with cooking spray & garlic until tender, before adding the tomatoes.

– add 1 onion, finely diced

– add 1 green bell pepper, diced

– add 2 carrots, diced

– add 2 stalks celery, finely diced