Best Ever Pasta Sauce

I had a nostalgic morning this morning. The babe was playing on the floor, singing away, the toddler dancing to a movies music, laundry everywhere, fog in the air crockpot out and pasta sauce cooking on the stove. Like being a housewife of times past. Actually made me think of my mother. She always wanted to be a stay at home mom. Cook, bake, sew and care for her four children. I feel lucky. Lucky that I get to experience this. That I kind of sort of get to live in my moms dream.

Anyways…… on to my newest adventure of domestication. Homemade pasta sauce. I don’t think I can buy jarred stuff again. This tasted so fresh and yummy. I got a recipe from Pinterest and it sent me to this lovely blog’s recipe.  I shall be watching for more of her stuff I think. I basically followed her ingredients but I never completely follow a recipe to the dot, so here is what I did in modification (which isnt too much)

Ingredients:

• 1 large yellow onion. Chopped roughly or in one of those cool pull string choppers from Tupperware and let your toddler do it. (Seriously her favorite thing to do in the kitchen.)
• 2 heaping tablespoons of pre crushed garlic (like from the GIANT jar you get at Costco)
• 1 tablespoon coconut oil
• 1 big can of italian tomatoes
• 1 can of tomato paste
• 2-3 cups of vegetable stock (yay veggie friendly!)
• 1 bay leaf
• salt, pepper, Italian seasoning and sage

Preparations:

1. Soften the onions in the garlic and coconut oil inside the pot.
2. Add the tomatoes, tomato paste, bay leaf and salt and pepper. Let simmer. Her recipes says 2 hours, I did 1.5 hours, with adding more stock at like 45 minutes. (hence the odd ingredient amount) It was seeming very thick already so I added more and pulled it off earlier then her recipe.
3. Add the seasonings to your taste. I was tempted to add chili powder but figured I would try a traditional version first.

I ate a bowl of whole grain spaghetti with some sauteed red kidney beans and spinach with this sauce for lunch. So delicious. And toddler approved. AND vegan/vegetarian.

Once relatively cooled I put the leftovers in freezer bags for future use. Next time I will make 2 or 3 times as much for larger batches that will last a long time.