Apparently Santa Maria has been studying the Victoria marinara jar. Yesterday afternoon, she responded to a commenter on this site who wanted to know if there were any fillers in the sauce by listing, verbatim, the ingredients on its label: “imported Italian tomatoes, pure Italian olive oil, fresh onions, fresh basil, fresh garlic, sea salt, spices.”
Last night I had planned on preparing our quick Indian weeknight special, but when I came home from work, there was a bowl of freshly cooked pasta waiting for me, topped with the Victoria sauce, chopped mozzarella, and freshly grated parmesan, with a side of Hot Robot Spinach. Santa Maria had made me dinner.
I took a bite of the pasta. “It’s so good, isn’t it,” she said with a sly smile. “I see no reason why we would ever have to make homemade sauce again.” Uh oh, I thought, am I out of a job?
To impress her with my culinary knowledge, I told her about a website that I had found that afternoon: Cupcakes Take the Cake, which links “to over 400 bakeries (divided into NYC bakeries, non-NYC U.S. bakeries, and international bakeries)” and aggregates recipes from bloggers and elsewhere for the delectable treat. “Oh, I’ve known about that for ages,” she said. What’s a guy to do?
Clearly you’re going to have to up your marinara game to shame the jarred stuff out of your kitchen and to secure your future at the stove. That, or up your cupcake recommendation game. . .
Indeed. Tough as it is to beat the Victoria sauce, I have one I like to make that to me tastes 1,000 times better.
It takes one can peeled plum tomatoes, one small onion, some olive oil and a bunch of butter.
Chop the onion and carefully sauté it in the oil and butter until it is perfectly translucent, but not at all brown.
Chop and/or blend the tomatoes and add them to the pot. Simmer for about ten minutes to a half hour or so.
It is sweet and delicious, but Santa Maria doesn’t appreciate all the fat. If she’s going to have fat, it’s going to be in a cupcake. That’s that.