red sauce

there's a restaurant in my hometown that i dream about sometimes. no, seriously. i dream about garlic and italian house dressing and red sauce and wake up gnawing on my pillow. that red sauce haunts my dreams. i often proclaim my desire to drink it straight and so help me, i would. i would drink it warm and out of a coffee cup, i would drink it mixed with vodka in a martini glass. i would have it injected into my veins if i could. just get it in me.

this is not that red sauce. no, this is the product of me spending years trying to recreate that red sauce. lord knows i've tried. i've gone from aborted attempts at blending crushed tomatoes with italian seasoning and crossing my fingers to a nasty attempt at making sauce in a porcelain pan that led to rather crunchy results to this final product - a red sauce i feel comfortable with labeling as my red sauce. it's a recipe i've honed through trial and error, a recipe i'm working on all the time and it's a recipe i'm proud of. so hello, welcome, and let's cook.

the usual suspects.

olive oil
1 white onion, finely diced
5 cloves of garlic, minced

2 28 oz. cans crushed tomatoes
1 tablespoon italian seasoning + more to taste
1 tablespoon grape jelly + more to taste
salt and pepper

so first you're going to want to heat up a dollop of olive oil in a large, heavy pot over low heat. while the oil is heating, dice your onions and crush your garlic. slowly brown the onions and garlic in the oil until everything is soft and brown and your kitchen smells absolutely amazing.

(sidenote: is there anything better than this smell? no. no there is not.)

add the crushed tomatoes to the same pot and give everything a nice stir so everything can meet. add the seasonings, and stir.

now it's time for the secret ingredient. now, trust me. please trust me.

no! don't run! i told you to trust me!

in my bag-of-cats mind, grape jelly is like adding wine and sugar to your sauce but in one convenient spoonful. grape jelly adds sweetness and this nice, grape-y depth to your sauce. so shh. trust me. add that tablespoon. we're friends, right? yep. there you go.

no turning back now.

stir in the grape jelly and turn the stove down to simmer. leave it alone to simmer for as long as you like. i usually give it about twenty minutes to half an hour (and once i got sucked into buzzfeed and left it on the stove for an hour and it was okay, albeit a bit burnt at the bottom), which is just enough time for everything to simmer together and for the flavors to become best friends.

give the sauce a taste and see what it needs. it usually needs something. it's like a baby that way. if it needs more seasoning, add more seasoning. if it needs more sweetness, add more jelly (you're through the looking glass now, alice). i like to add some shredded parmesan at this point because cheese is all that is right and good in this world. get everything melty and bubbling and you're good to go. i make big batches and store it in freezer bags until needed.

yeah.

this sauce is amenable to being tossed with pasta, dolloped over stuffed shells, spread on pizza, or used as a dipping sauce. i would not suggest drinking it straight though. it may be a bit much for that.