My wife expecting our second child.

This is a shell that we’ve had in our bathroom for years and years. I photographed it and then manipulated the colors and applied an artistic filter. This may end up as a print hanging in our other bathroom.

After some digging around for a good recipe I found one that sounded simple, yet really good (minus the green peppers that they suggested. What the…?) and I set to making us a dinner to remember. Below is the recipe I came up with (with some modifications). I actually doubled the recipe I found and we actually came out in the end with enough left overs for one (which I gave to our neighbor). So this should be enough to feed a family of 4-6 depending on your size. We also breaded and fried up some of our zucchini too for dipping in the marinara, so we did use more than what was needed for just the pasta.

By the way, even though this is a stripped down pasta sauce with no meat or fancy things added, the kids loved it!

4-5 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 of a medium onion
1/2 cup chopped green pepper (I didn’t add this but feel free. I think it would ruin the vibe though)
4 garlic cloves (or more baby!), chopped
6 cups (about 6-7 large) peeled, chopped tomatoes
1 can( 12 oz.)no-salt-added tomato paste
2 teaspoons sugar
2 teaspoons fresh basil – chopped
1 teaspoon fresh oregano – chopped
2 teaspoons of salt salt
Dash of pepper

Directions:

Heat olive oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add onion, green pepper, and garlic. Cook, uncovered, 2 to 3 minutes. Put the tomatoes into a food processor and blend to a fine mixture. You can make the sauce chunky or more pureed as we chose to (it was perfect) Add remaining ingredients. Reduce heat to low and simmer, covered, until tomatoes are very tender, about 15 to 20 minutes or more; stir occasionally. Cool 5 minutes.

Serve over fresh pasta, sprinkle generously with parmesan, dip zucchini, drink red wine. Enjoy.

Cleveland Ohio 2009