For Alice ;o) Tomato Sauce

This year was a good year for Jersey tomatoes. I have a bumper crop of giant heirlooms and paste tomatoes! (Thanks Mom, for the heirloom seeds!) Here's how you make tomato sauce from fresh tomatoes.

1. Wash them up!
2. If you are lucky enough to have a KitchenAid with a meat grinder and a vegetable strainer (and a Dylan) you core them and roughly chop them and plop them into the hopper. Tomato sauce comes out into the bowl, and "tomato turds" (as they are affectionately known in our family) come out the end. If you don't have all of that, a simple old-fashioned food mill will do the trick nicely.
Now it's time to cook them!

I add (not in quantities, because it varies according to how much you have in your pot):
Fresh garlic, crushed through a garlic press
Fresh basil, finely chopped
Oregano
Italian seasoning
Finely chopped onion (or if I'm lazy, the dried onion flakes)
salt & pepper

I'm a purist kind of sauce person, I don't care for adding sugar to my sauce. You can adjust the quantities of seasoning above to make it on the mild side, or spicy. Mine is in between. After making sauce this way for years, I really don't care for jarred sauce from the food store. It's a bit sweet for me ;o)