The Simplest and Fastest Tomato Sauce

Spaghetti and meatballs in less than half an hour!

Difficulty: Very Easy

Prep time: 5 minutes

Cooking time: 15 minutes

Cost per serving: $0.25 to $0.40

Useful leftovers: Yes

The Fastest and Tomatoiest!
1 can very good tomatoes.
1 onion
1 rib of celery

A bit of oil

One of the better canned tomatoes from California is fine. Check the label and if you find some without a lot of salt and without calcium chloride pick that.

Chop the onion and celery and saute in a heavy bottomed pot until translucent in a bit of oil. Add the tomatoes and heat through. Let it simmer for a while. Mash up the tomatoes. Season with salt and pepper.

This is surprisingly good and so simple. You can jazz it up by adding garlic, red wine, rosemary, cumin, pesto, basil, sausage, salami, ground beef, cheese, lemon, tiny shrimp or any number of other goodies!

You can use this sauce with pasta of course but you can also use it to cook chicken or fish or as a seasoning for other sauces. You can add it to macaroni and cheese to make it tomatoey or put it on top of a roast or meat loaf. So handy!

The reason we look for tomatoes without calcium chloride is that they add it to keep the tomatoes whole and firm, and we want them to break down into the sauce.

Hartman House Pasta Salad basic recipe

1 lb small pasta such as acini di pepe or orzo
1 large cucumber
1 bunch of herbs (cilantro, basil or flat-leaf parsley)
1 tablespoon of whole cumin, ground
1 teaspoon of celery seeds, crushed between your fingers
Olive oil
Red wine vinegar
Lemon zest and juice


Boil the pasta in salted water until just done. Drain and rinse in cold water to stop the cooking. Drain very well.

Crunchy cashews added a salty crunch. Yay!

We want to use all of the skin of the cucumber (if it hasn't been waxed) so cut it like this: cut two strips off either side to get a lot of the skin off. Slice the skin into tiny pieces. Cut the rest of the cucumber into 1/4" dice.

Chop the herbs.

Add the herbs and cucumbers to the pasta along with the seeds and the lemon zest. Dress with oil and vinegar and lemon juice to taste. Salt and pepper.