Homemade Tomato Sauce

I decided to make my own tomato sauce as a base for other recipes such as bolognese, lasagne, and other pasta dishes.

The recipe is fairly flexible and there's not a lot of weighing going on but as a rough guide this is what I used today.

Ingredients

3 tins tomatoes (I have read that San Marzano tomatoes are the ONLY ones to buy, but I've yet to try them. I used tins of whole plum tomatoes)

200ml white wine

3 onions

garlic (I used about 6 cloves, LOVE garlic!)

1 stick of celery

2 carrots

big handful fresh basil

dried oregano

1 teaspoon (ish) sugar

2 tablespoons tomato puree

olive oil, about 1 tablespoon

Warm the olive oil in a large saucepan, just a low-medium heat is fine.

Chop the onions. You'll see from the photo that I used brown and red onion, no particular reason for this, that's just what was in the cupboard.

Add the onions to the pan, give a little stir.

Chop the carrots, add to the pan, another stir.

Chop the celery and garlic, add to the pan and stir a few times until everything is well mixed.

We just want to soften the veg, not brown so stir every so often until the onions go translucent.

Add about a teaspoon of dried oregano, more or less to taste.

Add the tomato puree and white wine.

Give a good stir and leave for 5 minutes.

Add the tinned tomatoes and the basil.

Leave to simmer for a good 20-30 minutes until all the vegetables are soft.

Have a taste, you may need to add a teaspoon or so of sugar. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Allow to cool.

I must admit, I have a toy. My blender, it's great! You can use a jug blender or a stick/immersion blender or, if you wish, leave your sauce chunky.

I have children, I need to blend the veg.

Once the sauce is cool enough to blend (we don't want hot sauce being splattered around) either transfer to a jug blender or leave in the pan.

Use whichever blending method you prefer to blend until you get the consistency you want.

Mine isn't completely smooth, but it's blended enough to disguise the veg.

The ingredients I used yielded 4x400g sauce.

I transferred the sauce to foil trays which will then be frozen.

For variations, try adding a little chilli or roasted peppers