Super simple pasta sauce

Brunch: Potatoes a la Putin with scrambled eggs and feta

Dinner: Vegan spicy bean burgers with spaghetti and super simple pasta sauce

I'm one of those people who will never eat pasta unless it's suggested by someone else, not because I don't like it, but because it just doesn't often kick around in my mind as in idea. Putin was a bit sore that he missed out on vegan burgers the day before and wanted me to try the burgers with pasta, as he'd had last time, so we set to making an awesome but simple sauce from scratch - and had a delightful Sunday arvo doing so.

My boss's recent diet change - he's attempting to cut out all unnecessary salt - has highlighted to me just how much of our food has ridiculous amounts of salt added to it. Tinned tomatoes are an unexpected culprit, with shocking amounts of sodium in every can. With this in mind, and an excessive amount of tomatoes in our fridge, we decided to crush our own and use that as the base. It worked really well, especially with extra time to cook, and there is no added salt at all in this sauce. Hooray!

Incidentally this would also be a great recipe to make with kids, as it's ludicrously easy to make, fun and the potential to ruin it is minimal. I can't wait to make it with my nephew soon!

You'll need:
(Feeds 2)

350g tomatoes, chopped then crushed
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 medium onion, diced finely
100g mushrooms, chopped
oregano
black pepper
chili flakes
sunflower oil / extra virgin olive oil

Method:

Chop and then crush the tomatoes
Fry the onion and garlic in the oil until they're translucent
Add the tomatoes and oregano and simmer for 20 minutes
Add the mushrooms, pepper and chili flakes (to taste) and simmer on low for 20-40 minutes. The longer you leave it, the better it will taste
Serve on top of any pasta.

This greatly benefits from a splash of red wine if you have it - we only had Baileys left over from the Banana and Irish Cream cake I made, and I had an inkling that Irish Cream wouldn't go so well.

Any leftover sauce can be put into a sterilized glass jar and kept for a couple of days in the fridge. To sterilize the jar just boil it in a pan of water, and don't get your potentially grubby fingers all over it when it's clean!

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