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try to find imported Italian brands of canned tomatoes, such as San Marzano. But making your tomato sauce with store brand tomatoes will just ruin it, in my humble opinion. No matter how you try to jazz it up with garlic and onion and spices, the bland taste will still come through. So, at least buy brands of ground peeled tomatoes such as Pastene or Cento, which come in a 28 ounce size. Sometimes these brands will have a basil variety; if you see that do buy them, it will only add to the flavor of your homemade sauce.

Remember, you want to buy ONLY ground peeled tomatoes, not whole tomatoes. If you accidently buy whole canned tomatoes, you'll have to either process them in a food processor or a blender to reduce them down to ground, and that's too much work. This is supposed to be easy!

Next, you need cans of tomato paste. Again, stock up when you see brands like Hunts, Cento or Contadina on sale. I usually buy the six ounce size, probably because that's what my mother used to buy. But if the larger size cans are on sale, buy them; you can just adjust the recipe. Again, you may see the onion or garlic-added variety; go ahead and buy them if you want. It really doesn't matter because you will add flavoring and spices to this recipe anyway. Buy at least 4 cans of six ounce size tomato paste, as this will give you enough for either two medium size pots of sauce or one large tomato sauce.

Adding Zesty Flavor to your Homemade Italian Tomato Sauce

You should buy fresh yellow onions and fresh garlic for your tomato sauce. Don't use dried onion flakes, ever! If you don't like garlic or onion you don't have to use them, but they do add delicious flavor...

There is some work involved here though-you'll have to chop the onions by hand or use a mini processor, and peel each clove of garlic then crush it to release the flavor. (This is not hard to do, you simply place a clove of garlic on a cutting board, placing the side of a thick bladed knife atop the clove, then with the heel of your hand give the side of the blade a quick thump. Voila, a crushed clove of garlic! Oh, and to remove the smell of garlic from your fingers, rub them with a wedge of lemon.)

To keep this recipe simple, you can buy a jar of minced garlic to keep in the fridge and use that instead of fresh garlic. It's not as good as fresh, however. And, although it may be a good idea to keep garlic powder on hand for use in different recipes, I don't recommend it for tomato sauce. Your sauce simply won't be as

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