"Marry Me" Pasta Sauce
(or at least "Impress Your Date Or Your Spouse" pasta sauce)
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This one is dedicated to my grandmother, "Nana" Pacitto. She was my typical Italian grandmother – she was short, plump (though not so much as some grandmothers), religious, kept the house immaculate, and she cooked like a dream. Whenever she made her lasagna, people would come running for it! To this day, I will never order Italian with pasta when I go out to eat, because it could never compare with her lasagna. Every Italian family has their own secret recipe for pasta sauce, and this one is ours. ( If my late beloved Nana were around, I think she would have loved the idea of her pasta sauce being seen by people around the world. ) As far as Italian pasta sauce recipes go, this one is very simple: it's nothing more than bringing the ingredients together in a large pot, and slow-cooking it for several hours. Many genuine Italian pasta sauces use red wine to give the sauce a deep, rich flavor (and make it even more filling and satisfying to the belly); this recipe doesn't call for wine, but you can add a half cup of red wine if you want.
Nana's sauce is easy to make if you have patience, and you've got enough of it to serve a lot of people or last for several days.
Pans needed: Large covered stock pot of at least 8-quart size or more. The smallest pot I've been able to make this recipe in, without overflowing, has been a 6 and 1/2 quart enameled cast iron cooking pot. Because this sauce uses large amounts of tomato sauce, the pot must be enameled or stainless steel. (The sauce will react with aluminum or bare cast iron, which will give it a greyish color and a metallic taste. This is why these kinds of pots should be avoided when making slow-cooked tomato sauce.)
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 and 1/2 pounds (24 ounces) whole tomatoes, not canned
- 10 to 15 peeled garlic cloves
- 1 to 2 teaspoons salt
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 tablespoon Italian seasoning (or see below)
- 4 pounces (1/2 block) cream cheese
- 1 pound (16 ounces) pasta of your choice
- 1/4 cup fresh basil leaves
- 1/4 cup grated paresan cheese
Italian seasoning:
- 3/4 teaspoon dried basil
- 3/4 teaspoon drieds oregano
- 3/4 teaspoon dried parsley
- 1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary
- 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
Preheat the oven to 425° Fahrenheit. While the oven is heating, prepare a stock pot to boil pasta, using a large amount of salted water. Bring the pot of salted water to a boil.
Leave the cover on the pot, and simmer for two hours. (Uncover the pot to stir it every 20 minutes or so.) After this, uncover the pot and taste-test the sauce. If you feel it should be more spicy, add more ground pepper. Leave the pot uncovered, raise the heat slightly (to about 3 to 4 on a setting of 1-to-10) to compensate for the uncovered pot, and let it simmer for another hour (or more if you feel it needs more time) to reduce and thicken the sauce. Your whole home will be full of the aroma of cooking sauce; there's nothing quite like it.
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