You're and adult now, so start eating like one

Hey all! If there is one thing I hate when cooking it is canned pasta sauce. There are two images, neither at all attractive, that this conjures up for me: malnourished freshman that can't afford to eat well and wouldn't know how to even if they could and depressed parents with too many children that work too long hours to scrap up enough to just barely feed them in the few hours they have awake and outside of work during the week. Making pasta sauce, not from scratch but not from a glass or *shudder* plastic jar takes exactly as much time as it takes to make pasta anyway, so why not do it?

First off, start your water boiling. By the time it finishes boiling your pasta sauce will be ready. You'll need two cans of diced tomatoes that look like normal can sizes -- you know the things that beans come in. I try to get whatever kind doesn't have non-tomato things in it but if you're not an insane hypochondriac get the del-monte kind that is flavored. Okay, so get between one and three cloves of garlic, cut the gross flaky crap off of them, and throw them into the bottom of a blender. Now pour the two cans in. Then add a lot of crushed red hot pepper flakes, or a few if you don't like them. Now a bunch of orgegano and, here is the most important part, a LOT of olive oil. You basically want your sauce to be orange and not red. This is how it will be delicious.
Blend all of these together. Taste. Add whatever it is lacking.

Now get a huge ass pan. Pour the contents of the blender into the pan. Add chopped onion and pepper. If you're feeling cheesey add some ricotta. Let your pasta heart run wild, but when you've added everything let your pasta pan start to simmer. As you are doing this look over at your pasta water and notice that it has just started to get to a nice rolling boil. Think to yourself "damn, this really is just as fast as that jar pasta bullshit" as you add the noodles to the water.

Now here's a little something that makes pasta taste more like you are at a restaurant and less like you are a chump without the money to get grain that costs more than 97 cents a pound: when the pasta is just a little bit undercooked strain it and pour it into the pan with the simmering sauce. It'll keep cooking but rather than absorbing water it'll absorb the sauce. Also, get a kind of noodle that you haven't tried before. There's this one that starts with a P that Martha Stewart likes (I think because you can't slurp it and she probably hates noodle slurpers) that is like a really long tube, or a kind that starts with an R that is like a little play-doh star shaped thing.

I forgot to take a picture, guys, but I'm writing as I'm eating and it's delicious!
mwr