Garden Fresh Pasta Sauce

I just LOVE having a garden! It is so neat and rewarding to be able to cook from it, besides it tastes SO much better and it is healthy! We have tomatoes coming out of our ears right now so we decided to make pasta sauce from them. It really was just as easy as opening a can. And I love that our boys can help pick, prepare and understand exactly where their dinner came from. I found a basic pasta sauce recipe at Cooks.com and then added a few more things to it. We made this bread to go with it, perfect!

Garden Fresh Pasta Sauce

(4 servings)

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 large onion, chopped

2 T olive oil

2 lbs tomatoes (about 6 medium)

1 1/2 c water

1 (6oz) can tomato paste

1 T sugar (I will use less next time, our tomatoes are really sweet)

2 t beef bouillon

1 t oregano

1/2 t salt

1/8 t pepper

1 t fresh chopped basil

1 t fresh thyme

1 bay leaf

sliced mushrooms

sausage, fully cooked (we used chicken mozzarella sausage from Sam's Club) browned and sliced

To peel the tomatoes, cut an "x" on the bottom. Put them in boiling water for 30 seconds and then directly into ice water for a few seconds. The skins almost fall off. Then cut them into quarters, set aside. In a 3-quart sauce pan cook garlic and onion until tender. Add tomatoes, water, paste, sugar, bouillon, salt, pepper, herbs and bay leaf. Stir and bring to a boil. Let this simmer for 1 1/2 hours. Remove bay leaf and add mushrooms and sausage and let simmer for another 1/2 hour. Spoon over cooked pasta.