(Not Just ) Another Tomato Sauce

Alright, it kind of is just another tomato sauce. Another delicious tomato sauce, though, and one that's cheap to make and uses some of the same ingredients that you happen to have lying around the house after making, say, bolognese a couple nights before. This one, my own frequently-changing recipe, uses a few more veggies and is a little chunkier than Smitten Kitchen's simplest tomato sauce, to provide a differentiator.

I actually didn't decide to post this until after I'd finished my first helping. But it was such a crowd-pleaser that I decided to use the excuse of a photograph to take a second helping.

You'll need:

1/2 a white onion, chopped
4 cloves of garlic, chopped/minced
Roughly 6-8 baby carrots, thinly sliced
1 stalk of celery, thinly sliced
3 Roma tomatoes, chopped and lightly salted (new trick I discovered tonight)
olive oil
Dried (or fresh) basil)
1 tbsp butter
1 regular can tomato sauce
1 lb spaghetti rigati, or similar pasta
Salt to taste

Combine the onion, garlic, carrots, celery, tomatoes, and a sprinkle of dried basil in a sauce pan or dutch oven with a liberal drizzle of olive oil. Sautee and stir occasionally over medium-low heat, adding the butter a few minutes in, and until the vegetables begin to soften. Then, add the tomato sauce, a pinch more dried basil, and salt according to your taste. Bring to a boil then simmer, covered, over low heat for about 20 minutes, or while you've boiled water and cooked your pasta. Serve over pasta, with grated parmesan, if you have it.