It's marvelous for pasta, and you can make primo meatball subs with it as well.

Equipment

Medium saucepan with lid
Stirring spoon
Measuring tablespoon
Measuring teaspoon
Optional, but awesome to have, infrared temperature measuring instrument (Like this )

Ingredients

1 tablespoon olive oil
3 teaspoons minced garlic
...Optional: ½ of a carrot, minced (to reduce tanginess — do not use sugar!)
...Optional: 4 ounces sliced, cooked mushrooms
...Optional: pre-cooked meatballs
2 tablespoons of Hunt's tomato paste with Basil, Garlic & Oregano (...this stuff )
1 tablespoon red wine (merlot)
1 eight ounce can of tomato sauce
1 thirty-two ounce can of crushed tomatoes

Directions

1: Place a saucepan over medium heat.

2: Once the saucepan is hot, add 1 tablespoon olive oil, then swirl the saucepan until the bottom is covered with the olive oil.

3: Add 3 teaspoons minced garlic;
...Optional: add ½ minced carrot (reduces tanginess)
...Optional: add four ounces of sliced, cooked mushrooms, drained and patted dry if canned
Cook and stir for 45s per added ingredient. It'll smell great.

4: Add 2 tablespoons canned tomato paste;
Stir and cook for 2 more minutes.

5: Add 1 tablespoon red wine (merlot);
Stir and cook for 2 more minutes.

6: Add eight ounces tomato sauce;
Add thirty two ounces crushed tomatoes;
...Optional: Add pre-cooked meatballs;
Stir well;
Cover the saucepan now.

7: Reduce heat to low — aim for 160°F to 170°F maximum.
Do NOT simmer. If it's bubbling, it's too hot! ^{See note A}

8: Cook at 160°F to 170°F maximum for (ideally) 8 hours; minimum 4 hours

A) Here's the problem with simmering. When your sauce is simmering, you'll see bubbles rising slowly. What this means is that the sauce on the bottom is boiling hot. That will overcook the tomato content, and the sauce will darken and the chemistry will change, and not in your favor.

B) Safety: You don't need to let this simmer to make it food-safe; all tomato ingredients are food-safe before the long, low temperature phase of cooking (note pre-cooked meatballs, if used!) The garlic, carrots and mushrooms are the only ingredients that need to be cooked more fully and that's the first thing the recipe does. Cooking these ingredients harder releases considerable flavor for the later steps, too.

C) If you refrigerate the marinara, you can add pre-cooked meatballs for the re-heat; just make sure to give it another four hours at 160°F to 170°F for the marinara to deliciously invade the meatballs.

D) I have a just-too-hot electric stove. So it takes a little trickery for me to get that consistent 160°F temperature. What I do is, for the long cook phase, I place a heavy cast iron frying pan (old and otherwise useless... don't do this with a good cast iron pan!) on the burner, place the saucepan in the cast iron frying pan, then fill the frying pan almost to the brim with water. This creates a very large thermal mass which:

• Provides a lot of radiating area to reduce the total heat applied to the saucepan
• Brings the applied heat up the sides of the pan evenly

You get a very even cooking temperature this way, and it becomes easy — and precise — to get lower cooking temperatures as are needed here.