Just call me Rachael Ray

A few months ago, Bryan's cousin left for California for the summer and gave us all of her left over food. Included in this gift were cans of tomato paste, tomato sauce, and diced tomatoes. My first inclination was, 'what am I supposed to do with this???' Bryan informed me that some people actually make their own spaghetti sauce. Woah. Last night I was feeling very ambitious so I decided to pull out those foreign cans and put them to use. I found a recipe for marinara sauce that I used, and kinda did my own thing with it. And, wonder to behold- it tasted really good! I would say I'd never go back to store-bought spaghetti sauce, but I don't have that much patience. The good news is that since I had no idea what I was doing I made a TON of sauce, so we'll be eating it for weeks. And, if you're in driving distance and would like to try some of my excellent homemade sauce, come on over! Here's the recipe:

1 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup finely chopped carrot (I used a lot less because I thought it was weird)
2 large cloves garlic, minced
1 28 oz can tomatoes, cut up
1/2 of a 6 oz. can (1/3 cup) tomato paste
(I used a combination of diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, and tomato paste because I had all of them, and I'm not sure how much I used of each!)
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon dried oregano, crushed (I didn't have any oregano, so I just used Italian seasoning)
1/4 tsp salt (I just realized that I forgot to add this!)
dash pepper

A second thing to be excited about today-
I get to have a girls night with my grandma, aunts, and little cousins. I'm so excited!! We're shopping in Park City, so watch out Tanger Outlets, here we come!! Bryan has given me a $2.75 budget, but I was never good at the whole finances thing, so we'll see how that goes. Happy Friday and Happy 8/8/08!!