All-Purpose Tomato Sauce, Fast + Loose

Because I have discriminating taste, I'm frequently disappointed with tomato/pasta sauces from jars. Don't get me wrong, I don't snub jarred sauce! I've just moved over gradually to making my own. I started with a recipe (which I can no longer find) and eventually developed my own base recipe for a tasty sauce from scratch, "fast and loose".

In my opinion, these are the must basics:
- tomato puree (28oz size, no salt added)
- small sweet onion
- four cloves of garlic
- dried oregano, basil, and rosemary or tarragon
- salt + pepper

Use a large sauce pan with a couple heavy glugs of olive oil. I chop my onion into a dice and sweat it until it's translucent. Mix in your salt and pepper. I only add a few pinches of salt until I taste it after cooking. The tomato puree you're using makes a big difference in flavor. Add the garlic and your chosen spices (around a tablespoon of oregano, everything else in lesser amounts) and saute another few minutes. Add the puree and cook at medium heat for at least half an hour. That's it! In the amounts listed, it's enough for about four big servings of pasta or one lasagna. It's awesome as a pizza sauce as well. Plus, the sauce will last a few days in the fridge. That's the cheap, easy version but you can pump it up in numerous ways:

- fresh herbs always taste better
- chopped tomatoes added for a chunkier sauce
- white balsamic vinegar if your sauce lacks tang
- red wine (I'm not a fan of wine-y sauces)
- fancy imported tomatoes
- add cream, cream cheese, or pesto

It's just nice to have something homemade on hand for quick dinners. Especially when it's so easy to make sauces of this kind. I need to experiment with tomato brands but using these guidlines I always end up with something yummy. I made a batch today just for freezing! Stupidly, I didn't freeze it into an ice cube tray! Now that I have a food processor, I need to make fresh pesto as well. That'll certainly go as cube form into a bag for quick use.

Video Multi-tracking?

Instead of baking some bread and getting some cleaning done, I spent a good chunk of time multi-tracking this song with my ancient Canon Powershot. It's funny that I know so many people with recording knowledge, but that I still prefer to half-ass my own songs with video or terrible computer mics. I just have this belief that my vocals and simple songs can't stand up to high quality sound .. Plus, adding fresh guitar lines and background vocals by playing them over a previous video makes the original sound all fuzzy and hollow. I always get feedback (nice squealing noise, right?) but I sort of like it like that. I've got Audacity on my EeePc but I haven't gotten my inbound sound working with Ubuntu, so video multi-tracking it is!

The new song I recorded somewhat reflects what I've been listening to, which is unusual for me. I typically write the same bullshit over and over again. Maybe I'm just imagining it, but my diet of Superchunk, Yo La Tengo, Bonnie Prince Billy and Yes (yes!) is quietly working into the stuff I write.

Last night I attempted falafel for the first time (it came out tasting bang on, but I'm an asshole who can't fry anything properly) complete with:
- fresh discount pita from Sweis
- homemade tzatziki (extra garlic and lemon)
- vegetarian grapeleaf rolls from scratch
and, of course, the garnishing tray of baby greens, cucumber, tomato, and feta. I originally planned on baking the falafel but that went totally astray! They really started to fall apart during frying so I didn't even try taking a picture of them. I might try just pan-frying them next time because I honestly hate deep-frying anything. It's gross and there's too much cleanup for the pay off. Bleh!

Robbers Cave State Park

Austin and I just got back from a nice two night trip to Robbers Cave near Wilburton, OK. We stayed in a very adorable little cabin (fireplace, full kitchen, and piping hot water included) on the edge of a rock outcropping overlooking the park. It was a free vacation, thanks to Austin's job with the tourist department of Oklahoma. Kansas City was also a free trip, thanks to Austin, but this is the first trip we've taken where a conference or article wasn't involved at all.

It's been a weird last year .. I seem to enjoy the outdoors more than I used to, and I always value the trips we go on as quality couple time too! I suppose I'm learning that there's more to do than rotate bars and parties. Drinking with buddies, seeing movies, going to dinners; all fun but it was a much needed vacation.

We were talking about how being in the "great wide open" always makes us curious about ancient man/Native Americans/European settlers. It's the same sky after all, and the landscape hasn't changed much except for our powerlines and highways. I've got to admit that I was missing electronic media by the time we left, though we played lots of cards games and went on a few hiking excursions. All that quiet time also reminded me that I need to be more active in my creative outlets! Thus, ideas are brewing.