What's easy, delicious and red all over? - homemade tomato sauces - includes recipes and related articles on fresh and canned tomatoes

Vegetarian Times, Nov, 1997 by Barbara Haspel, Tamar Haspel

We've all been there: It's 6 p.m., it's pouring rain, and there's nothing in the house for dinner. Or is there? Some of the best meals are made with very basic ingredients, and a thorough search of your pantry might just uncover everything you need to make a near perfect repast--a can of tomatoes, onion, garlic and a box of spaghetti. With these items on hand, you can rally your family to the table within 45 minutes. Then as you twirl spaghetti around your fork and take in the smiling faces around you, you can consider all those well-planned, well-meaning meals in your past. It may dawn on you that it might not be a bad idea to serve spaghetti with homemade red sauce every night. If speed, ease and great flavor aren't reason enough to "head for the red," new discoveries on the nutritional front are.

Cooked tomatoes are the main dietary source of lycopene--one of the recently identified carotenoids that help prevent prostate cancer and heart disease, and that confers other important antioxidant benefits. Best of all, the more you cook tomatoes the more concentrated the lycopene gets. Armed with this knowledge, you can cook those tomatoes to your heart's content and create a topping that's as nutritionally rewarding as it is delicious.

Piquant Red Sauce

MAKES 4 CUPS LACTO

If you cook with dairy products, this tangy red sauce is a good choice for tubular pasta, such as penne or rigatoni.

1 Tbs. olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
1/2 tsp. dried thyme or tarragon
1/4 tsp. sugar
1/2 cup vodka or dry white wine
28-oz. can whole tomatoes in juice,
chopped and juices reserved
3/4 cup half-and-half or light cream
1/4 cup loosely packed fresh basil
leaves, finely chopped
(optional)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
to taste