Tomato Sauce

One of the essential things in my store cupboard is a can of peeled tomatoes. I saw this recipe in Jamie's home cookbook and used it to make MAF's pasta, as a pizza sauce and sometimes to make an easy sausage cassoulet. 

 400g can of peeled tomatoes ( chopped if you prefer) 

2 cloves garlic, chopped 

1/2 tsp dried herbs 

1/2 tsp dried chilli flakes ( for adults and older kids)

1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper

salt to taste

1 tsp sugar

olive oil 

handful of fresh basil chopped, optional

 1. Heat oil in a saucepan or large frying pan, add garlic and stir fry for 1 minute. 

 2. Add tomatoes and dried herbs,(chilli flakes if using). Stir and simmer till the sauce becomes quite thick. Taste add salt and sugar and simmer another 2 minutes.

3. Stir in basil. You can puree it to a smooth sauce if you want in a food processor. MAF"s Favourite pasta:

for 1 child 

Hand ful of pasta, penne or fussili 

 1/3 cup of tomato sauce 

Brocolli or a handful of sweet corn 

 1 garlic sausage sliced. 

 Cook pasta, and blanch the broccoli and sweet corn. Fry the sausage slices. Mix everything with the tomato sauce and serve. If you are one of the mum's struggling to feed a fussy Veggie hater, stir in some carrots and zucchini into the sauce and puree it before you stir it into the pasta, they'll never know it was in it.