The OP doesn’t like raw tomatoes.
How, umm, condescending of you.
Those of you who have shared recipes, thanks for the ideas!
Not much of a “sauce” though.
I’ve been known to make something like that, except usually after cooking the onions, I’ll toss in some wine, reduce, and stock, reduce. Tomatoes go in at the very end. You’ll want to add flour to the onions before the wine, though, or tomato paste after the liquids to get the proper consistency, something that actually adheres to the pasta. Typically, before the onions, there’s meat in the pan, whcih gets removed, then the meat and accumulated juices go back into the sauce before the tomatoes.
And still, after all that, it’s nothing better than stuff I make using canned tomatoes. And, you’re out your good tomatoes.
To actually use the tomatoes to give that sauce a nice consistency, you’re back to needing a food mill.
FYI, don’t expect to get a tomato sauce that is similiar to the stuff you can make from canned tomatoes or storebought tomato sauce from fresh tomatos. Unless you have a variety that’s made for cooking (as opposed to eating fresh, which most garden tomatoes are), the resulting sauce is going to be more watery than you’re used to. It tends to separate into tomato mush and tomato water, as opposed to melding into a homogenous tomato sauce. It happens even if you seed and peel the tomatoes.
Not that it’s bad, it’s just different than you might expect.
Also, re-reading the OP, it doesn’t sound like she actually is goign to put sauce ON spinach salad, but will use that to accompany.
Hopefully the OP comes around on raw tomatoes. I never used to like tomatoes, onion, or garlic growing up and now I can’t get enough of them.
irishgirl’s Chicken and Bacon
Fry onion and garlic in good quality olive oil with a pinch of salt and some ground black pepper over a low heat. Make sure garlic doesn’t brown as it will become bitter.
Turn up heat, add some diced skinless, boneless chicken breast and allow to brown.
Add some cubed back bacon (Canadian bacon) and a diced red pepper (capsicum) and continue frying until bacon is cooked and pepper slightly softened.
Add a tin of tomatos (or some chopped fresh tomatos and some passata), and a small tin (about 2tbsp) tomato paste.
Add a splash of balsamic vinegar (Worcestershire sauce or red wine are nice too) and a little sugar to reduce the acidity of the tomatoes.
Add a splash of tabasco or a pinch of dried chilli.
Simmer until sauce is consistency you prefer, and everything is thoroughly cooked.
Pour over cooked pasta and garnish with a bunch of fresh basil and some grated cheese (Parmesan or Cheddar work well).
This is less of a pasta sauce and more of a complete meal. It’s also good with yellow peppers and zucchini, or aubergine and green pepper if you want vegetarian alternatives. If you prefer to add minced (ground) beef instead of chicken and bacon it becomes spaghetti bolognese.
It works well reheated the next day or frozen (separate from pasta), and if you prefer can be covered in cheese and baked in the oven or grilled (broiled) to give a crispy coating.
You can use tomato paste to thicken things up and reach the consistency of jarred tomato sauce. I don’t know. I don’t have this problem. Like I said, I use anything from plums to Big Boys, and they all sauce fine as long as you make sure to only sauce the flesh (not the seeds).
My dad did, probably as a holdover from the Depression (he was born in '25). This is why I refused to eat any spaghetti he made until he started buying sauce instead.
Hmm…thinking of Band of Brothers, maybe Dad got used to the Navy’s excuse for “spaghetti sauce”.
Odd. I’ve tried tomato paste as well, but my results are quite different than jarred sauce. I went so far as to do research on the subject - which resulted in me finding out that the type of tomato used is the culpret.
Maybe you’ve just been lucky (or I’ve been unlucky) in your tomato choices?
Perhaps. My garden tomatoes are also surprisingly fleshy, which helps. Oddly enough, the Romas I grew made the worst (as in flavorwise) sauce. The Big Boys, which really aren’t meant for saucing, made the best. I don’t understand it myself, but I don’t question it. Whatever works, works.
I’m surprised the tomato paste doesn’t help. I do occassionally get the slightly watery sauce, and a tablespoon of tomato paste seems to bring everything back together into a cohesive unit. I don’t use a food mill, either. Just peel, cut, deseed (my method is to simply crush the tomatoes in my fist and let the seeds ooze out and the scoop whatever’s left away with my thumb and forefinger, and throw 'em in a pot.
Lots of good recipes here, so I won’t add one. I’m just surprised that no one has mentioned adding a shot of vodka to the sauce. There are flavor componds in tomatoes and tomato sauce that are only released with alcohol, it’s a standard addition to finish a pot of sauce.
A few hints:
Like peppers? Roast them under a broiler until blackened, stuff in plastic bag, peel and add with tomatoes.
Roast your garlic in the oven and add at the last minute.
Basil is your friend. Careful with fresh oregano however as it does tend to crowd the flavor. Rosemary works well with garlicky sauces.
Use canned. Save your sanity.
Use a whipstick if you want a less-chunky, more thick sauce.
Going beyond what Cecil says, Alton Brown, in a one-hour special dedicated solely to salt (it’s called Eat this Rock if you want to look for it on the schedule; or transcript is here), says salt makes food “taste more like itself” because of its “ability to electrically turn the volume up on our taste buds,” apparently related to the fact that it’s a mineral rather than a spice. I don’t know how scientifically accurate this is, but Alton’s usually pretty geeky about this stuff, so it’s probably close to the truth, if perhaps somewhat simplified. In any case, it’s definitely true that salt isn’t just useful in making things salty; even sweet stuff, like cookies and cake, taste flat if salt isn’t added. So there’s definitely something to it.
Thanks to everyone who has contributed! I’ll be stopping at the farmers’ markets tomorrow and Tuesday to see what I can get. I’m very excited to try some of these recipes.
As a note, I am not against using poultry or alcohol in the sauce, if they are required for anyone’s to-die-for recipe. 
I just want to eat some yummy pasta!
re Vodka: Robert Wolke claims that the whole alcohol thing is a myth, at the typical concentrations of alcohol, no appreciable flavour releasing occurs. However, I always felt rather dubious about his conclusions because the only compound he tried is anatto seeds and its not clear it can be applied to all flavour compounds.
re Science & Salt: I assume scientists are working around the clock to figure out this elusive “taste bud volume control” mechanism.
re other stuff: My basic philosophy is that for every ingredient you add to the sauce, you limit the versatility of it. If your making pasta sauce in large batches, then you want it as versatile as possible which means limiting ingredients to the bare minimum and only those which can’t be easily added later on. Olive oil, onions, tomatos are pretty much all you need if going for strict minimalism. Everything else can be essentially added in later.
Yeah it is. Not that you’d know, apparently, because…
Sure, if you add wine to it and tomato paste and (shudder) flour, and if you reduce it, you’re going to end up with something that’s no better than canned tomatoes. You’ll note, however, that my cooking method minimally cooks the tomatoes with a very few, minimally cooked ingredients; the result has a lovely summery freshness that you simply won’t get from a canned product. It’s a little bizarre that you knock it without having tried it.
You don’t have to like it; growing up, I didn’t like minimally-cooked tomato sauces, either. These days, I can’t get enough of them.
Daniel
I was going to comment on this, but kept my mouth shut. Now that it’s been mentioned, who in their right mind thickens a pasta sauce with flour?
I agree with you – it’s a fresh sauce. That’s what you use fresh tomatoes for. You’re not supposed to cook fresh sauces for more than like 15-20 minutes. Eight hours might be acceptable for something like a bolognese (even there it’s overkill), but not for a simple tomato sauce like yours. The Italian cookbook I used to have which I bought in Rome had a recipe almost exactly like Daniel’s, and called it “sauce.”
Sounds like what’s for dinner tonight. Summer isn’t getting away without a last hurrah. Thanks for the inspiration.
One more point I wanted to make. Trunk complained about the sauce not sticking to your pasta. If you use the right type of pasta (spaghetti would be perfect for your type of recipe; penne not so much so) and cook it correctly (al dente, sans olive oil) so that the pasta retains some of its starchiness like it’s supposed to, your ingredients should not separate into a pile of pasta and a pool of sauce.
The whole point of tomato sauce made with fresh tomatoes is that it’s supposed to taste like, gasp, fresh tomatoes. And minimal of ingredients and minimal of cooking (as in Daniel’s recipe) is perfect. The only thing I would add to his recipe is a note to fry the onions in a good extra virgin olive oil.
Here is one of my favorites. The key to cooking tomatoes is not to overcook them, since they will turn somewhat bitter after about an hour. I generally skin the tomatoes first by dipping them in boiling water for 30 seconds, then peeling under running cold water, but you don’t have to do this.
6-8 oz bacon
olive oil
1 medium onion, halved or quartered and sliced very thin
3-5 medium overripe tomatoes, chopped
fresh basil, chopped
fresh ground black pepper
Cut the bacon into quarter-inch strips by cutting it across the grain. Saute in olive oil until nearly brown, then add the onions and continue cooking until the onions are tender. Drain off excess grease. Add the tomatoes. Cover and simmer for about an hour.
Dish over cooked pasta, top with basil and ground pepper.