Aunt Jenny's Homemade Tomato sauce

Heat the olive oil in a dutch oven on medium low heat. Sauté the onions, herbs and salt for 2-3 three minutes. Add garlic. Sauté for another 3 minutes or so.

If using whole tomatoes, crush the tomatoes with your hands or put into a food processor. Crush or process to the desired consistency. About ten seconds in the food processor will give you nice chunky tomatoes if you start with whole. If using diced tomatoes, ten seconds in the food processor will make the tomatoes relatively smooth, with just a little chunkiness.

Add the tomatoes to the onions and garlic. Add the tomato sauce, tomato paste, chicken broth and beer. Add the pepper, bay leaf and the Parmesan rind. Simmer, uncovered, on very low heat for about an hour. If you want it thicker after an hour, leave the lid off. If you don’t want it to thicken anymore, put the lid on, and cook for another hour. You can cook it longer than that, but it’s not necessary.

The amounts of herbs are estimates. If I can’t see the herbs after everything is in the pot I add more.

The beer and chicken broth are both optional in this recipe. You can make a great sauce without them. You can make a great sauce without the parmesan rind.

I usually use Yuengling Lager in the sauce, because that’s what we have in the house. You can use pretty much whatever you want, but I recommend a pilsner, lager or lighter ale.

You can also do this in the crock pot, which is what I do when I add Italian sausage. The longer the sausage cooks, the more tender it gets. I use sausage links, and cut each link into three or four pieces.