Summer = Good Eats, No Fuss (ok a little fuss)

Sheesh, seriously, it's been a month and a half since I last posted a recipe? Eeegads. My paltry excuse is thus: I've been eating scads of fresh local produce, most of which need little to no cooking to make taste good. Try this tonight: Go to the market or farm stand and get some fresh ears of corn. Wrap them tightly in plastic wrap; microwave for 3 minutes. If you're me, slather in butter and lightly salt. If you're my husband, skip the butter (wah?) and salt heavily. Eat. Floss. Fin.

I have actually made some delicious things lately and have even had the balls to turn on my oven. God bless central air. Topping the list has been the Tomato Corn Pie from Smitten Kitchen. People, I cannot even begin to explain how good it is. It's everything wonderful about summer wrapped up in a light biscuity crust, with some rich cheese and little lemony mayo to round it out. Make this tonight.

Took this pic with my new iPhone. Pic does not do it justice. Head over to Smitten Kitchen and drool over her pics.

I've been receiving my CSA box for about 4 weeks now and have gotten some really lovely salad greens, cucumbers, and radishes. One way I've discovered to get me to eat more salad greens is to have a homemade dressing on hand at all times. Make a dressing at the beginning of the week to keep in a plastic jar in the fridge. Shake, pour on salad greens, and voila, it's something to cancel out all the butter I normally consume a healthy lunch. Here's my favorite one via America's Test Kitchen (with a few notes from me):

Basic Vinagrette (makes about 1 cup)
3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
3 TBSP red or white wine vinegar (I prefer red)
2 tsp minced shallot (I use a little more than this, about 1 shallot)
2 tsps Dijon mustard
1 and 1/2 tsps minced fresh tarragon, dill, basil, or oregano or 1/2 tsp dried
1 garlic clove, minced
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper

Shake all ingredients together in a jar with a tight fitting lid. It can be refrigerated for up to 7 days; bring to room temp then shake vigorously to recombine before using.

CSA week one loot: salad greens, snap peas, shelling peas, radishes, squash

Glorious radishes!

And lastly, here is a lovely meal we had a couple of weeks ago using basil and green beans from the CSA: Pesto potato salad with green beans. (smittenkitchenwhoelseimobsessed) and this amazing chicken from another blog that is quickly becoming a favorite, The Wednesday Chef.
Lately, I just can't get enough potato salad. This was a great way to quickly use up basil before it turned on me. The green beans were sweet and crunchy and amazing, and I kind of wished I'd just left them alone, but they were also terrific in this salad. The chicken is wonderful - recipe is linked above. I did use a whole cut up chicken rather than just legs as it states in the recipe, as my husband is not really into dark meat.

This meal is an easy weeknight creation and will provide substantial leftovers if you are a twosome, as we are. I was, however, on a bit of a rampage at the local grocery where the pine nuts were an outrageous $7.99 for 4 ounces and they were out of Panko for the chicken. (I ground up 2 slices of Pepperidge Farm Country White in my food processor and used that instead, good results, but will probably go with the panko next time). Amazingly, just two rows down on the shelf, I found the exact same pine nuts for $6.99 - only this was the ORGANIC version of the same brand - for $1 cheaper - ?????? I guess I'll just chalk it up to another of the many things that baffle me about our food system. Lesson learned: don't grab things at eye level, look above and below because you just might find the same (or better) thing for cheaper! (Note: I was still appalled at the cost of the pine nuts - Mark, could you pop over to Harvestime and remind me how much they are going for there? Methinks it is way less).

Hope I've given you some ideas for dinner this week! Stay tuned for a post on Summer Salads: Hold the Lettuce. Happy Summer!

POLENTA!!

God I love Polenta. But really only baked or fried... I'm not as much a fan of it when it's mushy. I've been wanting to make Polenta for weeks now, as it's hearty and vegetarian. I can't believe I haven't made it before.... it was crazy easy. I used the Barefoot Contessa recipe, but modified it for use with a 9.2 oz box of instant polenta (I know... I'll never be a French peasant's wife OR an Italian Grandmother... FALLIBLE). Although the only ingredient in mine was "Pre-cooked corn meal," so I think I'm fine. Anyway:

Baked Polenta with Sauteed Vegetables:

1/2 stick unsalted butter

1/4 cup olive oil (plus a touch more)

2 cloves minced garlic

1.5 tsp crushed red pepper flakes

1.5 tsp minced fresh thyme (from my areo garden!)

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper (not that I ever measure salt and pepper...)

2 cups Homemade Roasted Vegetable Stock (basically, just like Emily's but I roasted the veggies first)

1 cup cream

2 cups milk (or just 3 cups milk... I just happened to have cream that would have otherwise gone bad)

1.5 cups instant polenta (or just the 9.2 oz box I had)

1/2 cup grated Parmesan

Make Polenta:

1. Heat the butter and oilve oil in a large saucepan. Add the garlic, red pepper flakes, thyme, salt, and pepper. After a minute, throw in the stock, and milk (and cream, or whatever), and bring all this to a boil. Remove from heat and whisk in the polenta, return to heat for a minute and keep stirring, stirring, stirring..... it'll start to get really thick and a little bubble. Remove from heat again and stir in the Parm. I poured this into a 9x9 baking dish and smoothed the top, then popped it into the fridge. Preheat your oven to 350.

Bake Polenta:

When the oven is ready (let's say 10 mins), take our the polenta from the fridge and bake for about 20-30 until the top is firm and a little crusty. Note that it doesn't brown... it's not a cookie!

Make a topping:

While your polenta is baking and becoming magic in the oven, make either a sauce or a ragout to top it! This is a great way to get rid of extra veggies lying around in the fridge, which is exactly what I did.

I used half a yellow onion, one red pepper, one medium zucchini, and a handful of cherry tomatoes. In a few tablespoons of olive oil, heat 2 cloves of garlic until fragrant, then add your onions and saute until they're not so firm. Add the peppers and zucchini and keep sauteing. Once these get a little soft, throw in your tomatoes with some salt and pepper. You don't want this to all get too mushy, so if everything starts to loose shape, you've gone a touch too far. Remove from heat and throw in some julienned basil leaves. Congratulations, you just made a delish topping for your polenta.

Swiss Breakfast

You know, it really pays to have friends/roommates who know you and your tastes. Throughout Lent, I've been having Greek Yogurt with Homemade Granola (recipe coming soon) almost every day for breakfast. Sometimes, you need to change it up a little bit. Roommate Emily saw this quick little breakfast recipe in the Sunday Chicago Trib and said "Hey, you should make this. This looks like something you'd like." She was SPOT ON!

Swiss Breakfast (I have no idea what this means...)

Milk

Lemon

Apple

Rolled Oats (Old Fashioned Quaker works well)

Raisins

Slivered Almonds

Step 1: Curdle the Milk. Weird, right? Place 3 Tbs Milk in a bowl and squeeze 2 tablespoons of lemon juice on top (I just used half a lemon's juice). Watch it curdle! I don't know how well the picture captures it, but milk gets funny looking swirls in it when it curdles.

Step Two: Using a box grater, grate a whole apple into the bowl, peel and all. This is fun and it looks pretty. The recipe says to do it on wax paper then dump it in... I say just have good aim.

Step Three: Throw on a handful of rolled oats, raisins, silvered almonds, blueberries, whatever you want!

This is a delightful start to any day. You get creaminess from the milk, crunchiness from the oats and almonds, and a fresh pop from that lemon juice. And you probably have all the ingredients just laying around, too!

Vegetable Stock and Potato Leek Soup

Stock-making is one of those things that makes me feel all pioneer-woman. It makes me feel industrious and thrifty and swarthy...ok, maybe not swarthy. But it's the perfect wintry weekend activity when you don't feel like leaving the house.

I've made chicken stock a few times before and loved the results, but this time I decided to try vegetable stock. You can pretty much substitute veggie stock for chicken stock in any given recipe, except maybe Chicken Noodle Soup, where I'd recommend using only chicken stock. The ATK recipe for Potato Leek Soup calls for 6 cups of chicken stock, but I substituted my homemade veggie stock and loved the results.

Vegetable Stock
*I used an 8 qt pot for this recipe

Ingredients:
approx 4 quarts water (or whatever fits into your pot)
any veggies you have on hand!
salt and pepper

Note: If you want to be a true pioneer woman, you can save the tops of carrots and onions and such and freeze or refridgerate them for later stock use. If you've done this, dump all these into the pot. It's also a good idea to use items from your veggie drawer that are on their way out - not spoiled, of course, but those that you might not necessarily want to eat raw. We used the tops of the leeks for the Potato Leek Soup, some carrots, celery, and onions.

Directions:

Put all your veggies into the stock pot and fill with cold water. Add about 2 tsps salt and some pepper (freshly ground if you're so inclined). Bring to the boil, then turn the heat down and let it simmer for about 2 hours. Strain out the vegetables and pour into quart containers.

Then you're ready to make soup!

Potato Leek Soup
adapted from ATK

sweat those leeks!

Ingredients

6 tablespoons unsalted butter (you could substitute olive oil to make this a vegan recipe, but i don't think it would have quite the right flavor profile of this soup with French roots)
4 to 5 lbs leeks, white and light green parts only, sliced and rinsed thoroughly
2 garlic cloves, minced
6 cups low sodium chicken broth (I substituted homemade veggie stock)
1 and 3/4 lbs red potatoes (5 medium) scrubbed and cut into 1/2 inch pieces (I peeled mine as well)
1 tsp minced fresh thyme or 1/4 tsp dried (I used dried)
2 bay leaves
salt and pepper

1. Melt the butter in a large Dutch oven over medium low heat. Stir in the leeks and garlic. Cover and cook until the leeks are tender, 15 to 20 minutes. Stir in the broth, potatoes, thyme, bay leaves and 1 tsp salt. Bring to a simmer and cook until the potatoes are tender, about 15 minutes.

2. This is where I changed things up a bit - ATK recommends leaving the soup chunky and merely smashing some of the potatoes against the side of the pot to thicken it. (Don't forget to discard the bay leaves). While I think this might be good, I really wanted my soup a bit creamier and smoother. I used my immersion blender (top 5 favorite wedding gifts) to blend the soup to a creamy texture, leaving a few chunky potatoes here and there.

A delicious light dinner

It keeps beautifully in the fridge for 3 to 5 days. I've been eating it for lunches this week - grate a little fresh Parmesan on top and it's heaven. And if you already have the stock on hand, it's a very fast recipe - done in under an hour.

Sunday Dinner: Vegetarian Lasagna

This is a shout-out to my Vegetarian bffs, Kaycee and Kara.

Last week I had the brilliant idea that I would make a Vegetarian Lasagna for Sunday Dinner. I didn't have a recipe in mind but I figured I would just give it a google and some delightful recipe would pop up on my screen. Wrong! Foolish me... I forgot that you can't go wrong when you combine vegetables, pasta, tomato sauce, and lots of cheese in the oven. So, I pulled from a couple different resources and came up with my own recipe! I had never made a lasagna before... it was quite the process, but it certainly wasn't hard! Just give yourself a few hours.

Vegetarian Lasagna:

2 medium Eggplants, peeled and sliced

2 medium zucchinis, peeled and sliced

2 large red peppers, quartered

2 lbs ricotta cheese

1/4 cup chopped shallots

1/2 cup chopped basil (divided)

1 1/2 cup parmesan cheese (divided)

12 oz fresh mozzarella cheese, sliced thin

12 whole wheat lasagna noodles

Quick Tomato Sauce*

1. Toss Eggplant with 1 tsp salt and let drain in a colander for 45 minutes, then pat dry with paper towels.

2. Roast the veggies! Preheat oven to 375. Brush 3 baking sheets with olive oil. On one, place the eggplant, the other the zucchini (and some eggplant, you'll have more of this), and the red pepper on the last one, skin side up. Give the eggplant and zucchini a drizzle with olive oil and a sprinkle of salt and pepper, then roast these 2 vegetables for around a half hour in the oven until they're tender. The red peppers go down in the broiler. Keep them there until the skin is black all over (don't forget to keep checking), then place them directly into a plastic bag and let them steam (sealed) for around 20 minutes. Then, peel the blackened skin off the peppers.

3. While the veggies are roasting, make your tomato sauce. I used Emily's "Quick Tomato Sauce" from her Eggplant Parmesan, and I wasn't sorry!

3 TBSP olive oil

3 cloves garlic, minced
1 14.5 ounce can diced tomatoes
1 28 oz can crushed tomatoes
3 TBSP fresh basil, chopped fine
1/4 tsp sugar

Saute the garlic in the olive oil on medium-low heat for about 2 minutes until fragrant but not brown. Pour in both cans of tomatoes, stir to combine, then bring to a simmer and cook for 15-20 minutes, until it thickens slightly. Stir in the basil and sugar and remove from heat.

4. Fill a pot with water and bring to a boil. Add the noodles and a touch of olive oil and cook until al dente, then drain and leave in a colander until you're ready to use.

5. Make the ricotta cheese mixture. Combine the ricotta, half the parmesan, the shallots, and half the basil in a bowl. Mix until well combined.

6. Assemble the lasagna! Lightly grease a 13 x 9 glass pan with olive oil, then spread a layer of the tomato sauce. Lay down one layer of noodles, then spread a layer of the ricotta cheese mixture. Shingle 2-3 rows of eggplant, making an even layer, then ladle more sauce evenly on top. Next is another layer of noodles, then repeat with the ricotta. Place the zucchini evenly, then lay the roasted pepper on top. More sauce, then noodles, then sauce, then make a layer of mozzarella, then sprinkle generously with shredded parmesan!

7. Bake, covered with foil, for 45 minutes, then remove the foil and bake until the cheese is beginning to brown and the edges get a little crispy, about another 15 mins.

Let cool for at least 10-15 before you slice into this bad boy. Enjoy with a delightful side salad (like the Tarragon Artichoke salad Kaycee made in the picture!)

Time intensive, yes, but your guests will love you for making this! And you'll definitely have left-overs.

Tossing a Salad

So, I'm not exactly the world's biggest fan of salads, especially as a main event. Usually, I just don't find myself satisfied by eating a bed of greens for a meal unless it's covered in meat and french fries (thank you, Western Pennsylvania). However, I cannot deny how easy a salad can be to throw together and it does make for a refreshing break in your afternoon.

If I'm going to be eating a salad for lunch, it's going to be packed full of as many little bits as possible. I encourage using as a base whatever you already have in the kitchen. This is what I threw together, the amounts are up to you:

Organic Baby Spinach

Clementine Slices (because we happened to have clementines in the fridge)

Red Bell Pepper, sliced into bite sized pieces

Cannellini Beans

Toasted Hazelnuts

Crumbled Goat Cheese

Nice combo, right? I only bought the spinach and the goat cheese. But what really made it special was the vinaigrette I made. Make sure you keep it separate from the salad until you're ready to enjoy!

Tbsp finely diced shallots

3/4 tsp dijon mustard

1/2 cup olive oil

1/4 cup balsamic vinegar

sea salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

All of those measurements are ROUGHT estimates.... I have no idea what I actually put into the bowl. Anyway, just whisk all those ingredients together until it looks like a vinaigrette... add more oil or vinegar as you see fit.

Simple, delicious, healthy, nutritious, and (with a side of freshly baked bread) filling!

Cauliflower and Caramelized Onion Tart

One of my downfalls of this challenge is that I tend to choose complicated, time-consuming recipes. I'm trying to add some quality, quick weeknight meals to my repertoire - but sometimes it's just so satisfying to spend a couple of hours in the kitchen, creating something wonderful, sipping wine, and forgetting completely about the stresses of the day. For me, the kitchen is an escape from all the other crap going on in my life and in the world. Try it sometime - pour yourself a glass of wine, put on a cute apron, and start chopping.

Onto the food. I made an amazing leek and swiss chard tart at Thanksgiving, so when I saw this Cauliflower and Caramelized Onion Tart on Smitten Kitchen, I knew I had to make it. Also, I had some leftover tart dough in the freezer that I needed to use up.

Click the above link for the recipe. It is seriously so good. You should make this tonight. The cauliflower doesn't take center stage - it's definitely all about the onions and the cheese. Roasted cauliflower is quite a revelation though - I tasted a couple of pieces while assembling the tart and was surprised at how delicious it was! I'm thinking I might make this tart for my friend's baby shower that I'm going to be hosting this summer. Serve it with a green salad or roasted veggies. Naturally, I served it with Brussels sprouts. If you've met me lately, you have probably heard about my Brussels sprouts obsession.

Slice the ends off, cut lengthwise down the center, toss with olive oil and salt and pepper, and roast in a 450 degree oven for about 15 minutes, turning once halfway through cooking.

Deliciousness.
Tart assembly - dough is brushed with Dijon mustard, then caramelized onions spread along the bottom and topped with roasted cauliflower - then comes the cheese/cream mixture

Dinner is served! To maintain girlish figure, have a small slice of tart and fill up on those veggies.

Breakfast for the Bean

Schleichy-bean, that is. The golden soprano of St. Louis came to stay with me this weekend to hit up two auditions on Saturday. I wanted to make sure she'd have a nice breakfast before she started belting the high notes... naturally I thought of a quiche! Some protein, some fat, some veggies all wrapped into a buttery crust... what could be better?

I used the quiche recipe from the Williams-Sonoma "Food Made Fast: Baking"Cookbook. I can't praise this book series enough... I have several of the editions and have never been disappointed by their recipes. They sometimes take a little longer to make than the book claims, but everything is still relatively simple and comes out looking exactly like the gorgeous picture.

First, you have to make your pastry shell. I have to admit, I've been using frozen pie crusts for my quiches lately, instead of making them from scratch (SHAME! I'll never be the wife of a French peasant...). It's really not hard to make a crust, though, so I have no excuse for being lazy.

Pastry Dough:

2 cups Flour

.5 tsp Salt

1.5 sticks Butter (6 oz... oh yeah!)

3 oz really cold ice water

In a food processor, combine the flour and salt and pulse until mixed. Add the cubed butter overtop and pulse until coarse crumbs start to form. Then drizzle the water over top and pulse until the dough starts to come together. Roll this out onto a floured surface and then transport to your pie tin.

Long live BUTTER!

Note: The recipe in the book actually makes enough for 3 shells. What you see above is that recipe halved.... so, that makes enough for 1.5 shells. You can easily tweak this to make slightly less, but I like have extra and I'll show you way at the end of this post!

Pop the crust into the freezer for 5 minutes, then throw into a 425 degree oven for 10 minutes, or until lightly golden. Pull out of the oven and let cool while you prepare the filling.

Now the magic! Leek and Asparagus Quiche:

1 Leek, sliced

Half a bundle of Asparagus, cut into half inch pieces (you want roughly 1.5 cups total vegetables... I usually throw in more)

4 Eggs

1.5 cups (6 oz) grated Gruyere Cheese (again, I usually end up using more)

1 3/4 cups Organic Whole Milk (or Half-n-Half, or Cream... low fat milk is for losers)

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp fresh ground pepper (or to taste)

Sauté the leeks in about a tablespoon of butter until they start to get wilty, then throw in your asparagus, and cook until it's all soft, but not mushy, then set aside. Sprinkle half of the cheese into the crust. Then, wisk the eggs until blended and add the milk, salt and pepper. Stir in the veggies and the rest of the cheese. Pour into the partially baked and cooled crust.

Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until crust is golden brown and the middle is set. Resist temptation (this is Lent, after all) and wait until it cools before you dig in!

So I said I had extra dough... what to do with it? Make mini-quiches using ramekins, of course! Since I always end up adding more veggies and cheese than I'm supposed to, the filling ends up being too much for the crust. Just make sure you keep an eye on them in the oven, they'll be done faster than the big quiche. With this recipe, I made two extra little guys.

One last note: Nicholas Tonozzi, I need my roller back! I just mushed this dough out by hand and it was a little too thick. I blame you for this.

Day 1 and Eggplant Parmesan

Well, we survived Day 1! It wasn't easy, since I had to be at church in the evening for Ash Wednesday service in addition to working at my temp job all day. That is where the key to surviving this whole challenge (and life, I think) comes in to play: LEFTOVERS. Leftovers are the absolute savior of the home cook. I always hear people say - "Oh, I don't have time to cook every night" - and you don't have to! Just cook two or three nights a week, choose dishes that make a good amount of food (and reheat nicely) and you're done!

So Tuesday night, I set about to make Eggplant Parmesan. Now, I would not recommend you make this on a weeknight. It is a tad time-consuming, but oh so worth it in the end. I had made it once before, and had somehow forgotten how much time I spent on it - my husband remembered though. This is a great dish to make for Sunday dinner - heck, I think it's wonderful enough to serve to dinner guests - and perfect for vegetarians and omnivores alike.

The first step is salting and draining the eggplants for 40 minutes in a colander, then drying them on paper towels.

Now let me digress for a moment and introduce you to my Bible:

This amazing cook book, with over 1,200 recipes, comes from those lovely people who do the PBS show of the same name (hereby known as ATK) and Cook's Country. They also publish my favorite cooking magazine, Cook's Illustrated. I have learned more about cooking from this book than I have in all my years of watching Food Network. They guide you through the process of creating each dish with ease, and each recipe I've made from this book has turned out quite well. I recommend this book to all my friends.

Anyways, onto the recipe (and lovely pictures of course, all taken by my talented husband, whose hobby is photography):

Eggplant Parmesan (serves 6-8, reheats beautifully)
from America's Test Kitchen

For the tomato sauce in this recipe, they recommend making their Quick tomato sauce - which is what I did. The recipe for that follows as well. If you're in a time crunch, you can use jarred - but it's so easy to do it yourself - and cheaper.

2 globe eggplants (2 lbs), sliced into 1/4 inch thick rounds
Salt
1 cup all purpose flour
Pepper
4 large eggs
4 cups plain dried bread crumbs
3 ounces Parmesan cheese, grated (1 1/2 cups)
6 tablespoons vegetable oil
4 cups tomato sauce
8 ounces mozzarella, shredded (2 cups) (I used fresh mozz and just cut it into small pieces, it worked well).

Note: Since I haven't had time to make bread this week, I've been using this pita in its place: it's locally made and has only a few ingredients:

I decided to try to make breadcrumbs out of it for this recipe and it worked beautifully! For 4 cups of breadcrumbs, just tear up 4 pitas, toss into your food processor and pulse until it resembles breadcrumb consistency!

1. Toss the eggplant with 1 tsp salt (easiest if done in 2 batches) and let it drain in a colander for about 40 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, adjust two oven racks to the upper- and lower-middle positions, place a rimmed baking sheet on each rack, and heat the oven to 425 degrees. Combine the flour and 1 tsp of pepper in a large zipper lock bag and shake to combine. Beat the eggs into a shallow dish. Combine the breadcrumbs, 1 cup of the Parmesan, 1/4 tsp salt, and 1/2 tsp pepper in a second shallow dish.

3. Spread the drained eggplant over paper towels. Wipe away as much salt as possible and press firmly on each slice to remove as much liquid as possible. Working with about 8 eggplant slices at a time, place them in the bag with the flour, seal, and shake until thoroughly coated. Remove the eggplant, shaking off any excess flour, and dip it into the eggs. Remove the eggplant from the egg, allowing any excess to drip off, and coat evenly with the breadcrumbs, pressing them to adhere. Lay the breaded eggplant on a wire rack. Flour, dip in egg, and coat the remaining eggplant with breadcrumbs in the same manner.

4. Remove the pre-heated baking sheets from teh oven. Pour 3 tablespoons oil onto each sheet, tilting to coat the sheets evenly. Spread the breaded eggplant in a single layer over the hot sheets. Bake until the eggplant is well-browned and crisp on the first side, about 20 minutes. Flip the eggplant slices over. Switch and rotate the baking sheets, continuing to bake until the second side is browned, about 10 minutes longer. (Do not turn off the oven).

5. Spread 1 cup of the tomato sauce over the bottom of a 9x13-inch baking dish. Shingle half of the eggplant slices over the tomato sauce. Distribute 1 more cup of the sauce over the eggplant and sprinkle with half of the mozzarella. Shingle the remaining eggplant in the dish and dot with another cup of the sauce, leaving the majority of the eggplant exposed so that it will remain crisp. Sprinkle with 1/2 cup the Parmesan and the remaining 1 cup mozzarella.

6. Place the dish on the lower middle rack of the oven and bake until the cheese is bubbling and well-browned, about 15 minutes.

shingle the eggplant slices like so

et voila!

The eggplant is crispy and flavorful, the sauce is just sweet enough with a hint of basil and garlic - and the melted mozzarella...well, this is leagues better than any gloppy/greasy eggplant parm you'd get in your neighborhood Italian joint. We've been eating it happily for 2 days now.

Quick Tomato Sauce

3 TBSP olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 14.5 ounce can diced tomatoes
1 28 oz can crushed tomatoes
3 TBSP fresh basil, chopped fine
1/4 tsp sugar

Saute the garlic in the olive oil on medium-low heat for about 2 minutes until fragrant but not brown. Pour in both cans of tomatoes, stir to combine, then bring to a simmer and cook for 15-20 minutes, until it thickens slightly. Stir in the basil and sugar and remove from heat.

How easy is that? :)