Pasta Sauce

This tomato based pasta sauce is a great basic sauce to which you can add things to. Chicken, prawns or veg would all work. It's an excellent stand by and can be frozen and thawed out in a hurry. I've always found that jars of tomato sauce gave me bad indigestion, no problems with this sauce!

The following recipe makes two portions.

Ingredients
• 1 x 400g tin of chopped tomatoes
• 1 teaspoon of tomato puree
• 200ml boiling water
• 2 sweeteners
• 50ml tomato ketchup
• 1 chicken stock cube, crumbled
• 15g grated parmesan cheese
• 1 dash of worcestershire sauce
• ½ teaspoon black pepper
• 1 teaspoon of Italian seasoning
• 1 teaspoon of dried garlic granules
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 bouquet garni
• 2 teaspoons of dried parsley
• 50g mushrooms. Washed/wiped and quartered
• 5g / 1 teaspoon of low fat butter spread
• 1 medium onion. (Both Red or white onion would work). Peeled and finely chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic. Peeled and finely chopped
• 2 small carrots. Washed, topped, tailed, peeled and roughly chopped
• 2 sticks of celery. Washed, topped, tailed and roughly chopped
• Basil leaves. Roughly torn
• A good twist of black pepper

Method

1. Add the chopped tomatoes, tomato puree, boiling water, ketchup and sweeteners to a large pot. Turn the heat to a medium/high and bring the pot to a boil. Once it’s boiled, reduce the heat to medium and add the parmesan, worcestershire sauce, black pepper, Italian seasoning, garlic granules, bay leaf, boquet garni and dried parsley and stir well.
2. Meanwhile, heat a large frying pan on a medium heat and add the butter. When it’s bubbling, add the onion. Stir gently for 3-5 minutes, until lightly coloured. Then add the garlic and continue to fry for a further minute. Add the onion and garlic mixture to the tomato sauce.
3. Then add the mushrooms and fry lightly for 5 minutes. They might release a little liquid, which is fine. Transfer the mushrooms to the tomato sauce.
4. Next, add the chopped carrots and fry gently for 8-10 minutes until lightly browned. You should lightly season the carrots with salt and pepper. Transfer the carrots to the tomato sauce.
5. Next, add the chopped celery to the pan and fry gently for 5 minutes until lightly browned. You should lightly season the celery with salt and pepper. Transfer to the tomato sauce.
6. Stir to make sure all the additional ingredients are combined. Partially cover the pot with a lid and leave to simmer for approximately 20 minutes.
7. Just before you’re ready to serve, remove the bay leaf and bouquet garni and add the roughly torn basil and some black pepper
8. Serve with Whole Wheat Pasta.