San Marzano Sauce - Revisited

Yesterday was a day of reviewing school supplies and seeing what needs to be purchased, what can be borrowed from the library, finally felting my wool dryer balls...well, it was a busy day.  A good time to revisit the San Marzano Sauce recipe.  This time I only had 1 onion on hand and I had whole grain linguine.   I decided to go ahead with it anyway.  There was enough onion, but having that second onion would have been nice.  I like the flavor of the sauce.  I'm not sure what I think about the whole grain pasta though.  It's not bad, just different.  It makes a heavier pasta.  I admittedly like a softer pasta that is more delicate in texture and flavor.  When making the sauce, I would recommend not rinsing the cans of tomatoes into the sauce, but rather use a spatula to scrape the residual sauce from the can into the pan.  Rinsing just waters down the sauce too much.  I also recommend making sure you cut the root off well.  If some of the root is still left there, the onion will stick together and won't separate after stirring.

 I had gotten the whole grain pasta on sale and with a coupon, ending up paying about $.40 for the box.  San Marzano tomatoes run $2 - $3 a can.  I don't remember what I spent on the onion.  The stick of butter was around $.40.  That makes less than $7 for this main dish to feed a family of 8.  Not bad!  The baby certainly liked it.  She kept handing her fork back to me for more until Steve pulled out some Italian ice for her to try.  I bought that on sale, a package of 6 servings for $1.99.  For some reason, we have a green vegetable on occasion with pasta, but not always.  I figure it's okay, because we are eating tomatoes and canned tomatoes are just as good as fresh.  I think I heard that canned tomatoes are higher in antioxidants.  Good enough for me!