I want to open my own Italian restaurant because I love to cook and I love to cook Italian food. A great pasta sauce is the key to most Italian meals; lasagna, manacotti, even pizza. I actually prepare lasagna for thanksgiving dinner rather than turkey. Here is my recipe for my pasta sauce which you can use to prepare your own great Italian meals.

I now use a slow cooker to prepare my pasta sauce. I used to use a large kettle and cook on the stove top. But I had to constantly adjust the flame and stir the sauce. With the slow cooker or crock pot I can let the sauce cook without my constant watching. You need a food processor for this recipe and of course a slow cooker.

This pasta sauce is a vegetable based pasta sauce. Sometimes I add chicken or beef. Use your food processor to grate four medium sized carrots and three baby zucchini squash; process one large onion with three cloves of garlic and process a half stalk of celery with one bunch of parsley. Place all these all these ingredients on the bottom of your slow cooker which you have set on the low cooking time and temperature.

Now cover the ingredients with two 28 ounce cans of diced tomatoes and one eight ounce can of tomato paste. Stir all the ingredients together. Now add the spices. You add one teaspoon each of rosemary, thyme, oregano, marjoram, basil, savory, and sage. Give that a good stir. Now you add about two tablespoons of sugar. The sugar cuts down the acidity of the tomato.

Cook in the slow cooker for about two hours at the low setting. You can stir the sauce a few times throughout if you want but you do not have to keep stirring as you would if you cooked in a kettle on the stove top.

You may know of some pasta sauce purest who would not agree to use a crock pot. I have however used the slow cooker and the stove top and I do not taste a difference. And it keeps me having to clean the stove top after all the sauce has splashed from the heating process.

Use the stove top if you like. First bring the sauce to a boil and then return the flame to a simmer. And keep stirring the sauce. And once the pasta sauce is done cook up some pasta and try your sauce.

Remember to refrigerate it once it cools down. I place the sauce in a cool sauce pan so it will cool faster. You will have plenty of sauce to last you all week if you are serving one or two. Or if you have prepared the sauce for many guests it may all go at once. Perhaps you will visit my Italian restaurant someday and recognize this pasta sauce recipe.

As Mississauga restaurants offer some of the finest cuisine, restaurants Montreal also have outstanding desserts. If you’re thinking of eating a one-of-a-kind meal, remember to visit those restaurants!