Mom's Sauce & Baked Penne

     I have never made homemade tomato sauce before for a couple of reasons: 1) I’m not a huge red sauce fan despite having Italian in me 2) Everyone I know who makes sauce says it is a pain to make. We were having guests over so I decided to use my mom’s sauce recipe to make baked penne with. I’m not sure if my mom wants everyone in the world to have her recipe so I won’t post the exact measurements needed to duplicate it. It is very important that you do not use any metal utensils or pots when making this sauce as the acidity of the tomatoes in it will take on a metallic taste if you do. I used a wooden spoon to stir with and a plastic ladle to scoop the sauce out. I don’t have a Dutch oven so I substituted my large crock pot in its place.

     You need to render some of the fat from the sausage which is near impossible to do in a crock pot because it won’t get hot enough. Since there was no tomatoes used in this step, I sautéed the sausage with olive oil in a pan. Cook the sausage for about 10 minutes and then remove it from the pan. Since I was using a pan I had to modify the next step slightly, I added garlic to the drippings and sautéed that for a few minutes. Next, I added the drippings and garlic from the pan into the crock pot and mixed them with tomato paste. I had plugged the crock pot in and put it on high so it was hot enough to do the rest of the cooking needed. Once the mixture of drippings, garlic, and tomato paste turned a few shades darker, I added tomato puree, crushed tomatoes, and some water. I stirred everything up and dropped in the sausage links. The following seasonings are sprinkled on top: oregano, basil, parsley, salt, celery seed, and sugar. Stir the seasonings into the sauce until completely mixed with the tomatoes. If using a Dutch oven, turn the heat down to low and allow this to simmer for 3-4 hours, stirring every 30 minutes. Since I was using the crock pot, I left it on high and just kept an eye on it.

     About 30 minutes before adding the sauce to the pasta, I took all the sausage links out and chopped them down into small pieces and mixed it all back into the sauce. Thinking we were having 6 people total, I boiled 2 pounds of pasta in a large pot. Once the pasta was done, I ladled the sauce over it and mixed until it was all covered. As a final step I sprinkled mozzarella cheese over the pan of pasta and stuck it in the oven for about 20-25 minutes at 350 degrees. Once the cheese began to bubble and turn a golden brown in spots, I pulled it out and served it up.

     Everyone enjoyed the penne and I think the sauce had a lot to do with it. Like I said before, I’m not a huge fan of red sauce but it was good and I’m glad I took the time to make it from scratch. The sauce was very light and smooth which is nice for those of you who don’t like the chucky sauce most restaurants serve. Everyone had seconds so there was little left over and what was left was sent home with people and I’m having the last of it for lunch today.

Rating: Yummy - I know I'll make this again but it isn't a "must".