Tomato Sauce and Oven-baked Wings (recipes)

I had a wonderful vacation this past week. It was relaxing and I got to spend quality time with my man. There was only one problem. I started getting cranky near the end of our trip. I was ingesting too much grease in my system and not enough fresh vegetables. It only took a vacation to remind me how much I love to cook my own food.

Basic Tomato Sauce
Recipe from The Amateur Gourmet
(the recipe below was taken from his book, but his website has a similar one)

Makes 4 Cups

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1 Spanish Onion (substitute: yellow onion), finely diced
• 4 garlic gloves, peeled and thinly sliced
• 3 TBSP chopped fresh thyme (or 1 TBSP dried thyme)
• 1/2 medium carrot, finely shredded
• 2 28-oz cans peeled whole tomatoes
• kosher salt

Directions

1. In a 3-quart sauce pan, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add onion and garlic and cook until soft and light golden brown (8-10 minutes).
2. Add thyme and carrots and cook for 5 minutes or more until carrots are soft.
3. With your hands, crush tomatoes and add them with their juices into the saucepan.
4. Bring to a boil, stir often, and lower heat. Simmer for 30 minutes or until sauce is thick as hot cereal.
5. Season with salt. Serve.

Notes:

• Keeps for 1 week in fridge or 6 months in freezer.
• I found the sauce a tad too salty for me, because of the sodium in the canned tomatoes. Next time, I may attempt to cook this sauce with super ripe fresh tomatoes to cut back on the salt.

Oven-Baked Chicken Wings

Serves as many as you want.

Ingredients

• Chicken wings
• Black pepper
• Salt
• Garlic Powder
• Olive Oil

Directions

1. Rinse the wings and dry with a paper towel. Lay them out on a baking sheet.
2. Preheat oven to 400°F.
3. Drizzle the wings in olive oil and make sure the wings are evenly covered in the oil. Liberally cover the wings in black pepper and garlic powder. Add a dash of salt on each wing and rub the salt into the wing (a wing massage if you will.).
4. Line cooking sheet/baking sheet in foil and lay the wings on it. Make sure to give ample space between each wing (about 1 inch of space).
5. Bake in oven for 40 to 45 minutes or until the skin is golden brown.