Quick tomato sauce.

Why anyone would use jarred tomato sauce is a total mystery to me. Loaded with salt, sugar (in the form of high-fructose corn syrup), and chemicals, overcooked, and then pasteurized, even the best of the jarred sauces tastes like...well, crap. I've heard all the excuses, "it takes too long to make my own sauce," "I'm not Italian, what do I know about making sauce?" "I don't have time to cook sauce after working all day." Poppycock. In the time it takes to boil water and cook the pasta you're going to serve it with, anyone (well, almost anyone, but that's another story) can make homemade tomato sauce from either fresh tomatoes or from high-quality packaged tomatoes.

When I first met my wife (happy 25th anniversary, honey), she thought she couldn't make tomato sauce. She was intimidated, she said, because of my Italian background. In one lesson, I taught her to make as good a sauce as my grandmother. In two lessons, she had left Nona in the dust. And Nona claimed to have taught Chef Boiardi how to cook. Which would explain a lot. (For the record, I think that Nona was speaking metaphorically, since Boiardi lived in Cleveland, and Nona had never been west of the Hudson River.)

The secret to a great quick sauce is in not expecting a "Sunday" sauce. Sunday sauce was traditionally started early Sunday morning (duh), right after Mass. The women would come home from church and start to cook. Meatballs, braciole (both of which were made from scratch on Saturday), sausage, and pig's knuckles were all browned and added to fresh tomatoes that had been canned the previous summer. This would simmer for hours, until the meat was tender and the sauce was thick and rich. Can you get that taste in 30 minutes? Absolutely not. You can't get it out of a jar either, though, so why bother trying? But what you can do is to make a very, very good marinara style sauce in 30 minutes.

To begin with, start boiling water for the pasta. There are rules about which shapes go with which sauces, but for now, let's just concentrate on long pasta (spaghetti, linguini, cappellini, perciatelli, etc.). While the water's heating, thickly slice some cloves of garlic and roughly chop a small onion. Heat a cast iron skillet over medium high heat and add about a tablespoon of olive oil. When it's just starting to shimmer, add the onions. Let cook for about two or three minutes and then add the garlic. Lower the heat to medium and cook, stirring, until the garlic begins to color. As soon as it does, add a pint of cherry tomatoes (for two people). You could slice them in half, if you'd like, but it's not necessary. Turn up the heat to medium high again, and cook, stirring or shaking the skillet. The tomatoes will begin to break down, releasing their liquid. The water should be coming to a boil about now, so add your pasta to it. Allow most of the liquid that the tomatoes have lost to evaporate, and let the tomatoes begin to caramelize (the natural sugars will begin to turn brown. Only foods with sugars caramelize. Meat does not!). Add some hot red pepper flakes, and turn off heat.

Cook the pasta until al dente, which means "to the tooth" (it should yield easily to the teeth, but have a bit of resistance or even crunch in the center), bearing in mind that pericatelli will take longer to cook than cappellini, drain the pasta and put it into the skillet with the tomatoes, toss to mix, add some torn basil and some freshly grated parmigiano reggiano or asiago cheese, and serve.

For pasta alla putanesca, add four anchovy fillets with the onion, up the red pepper at the end, and instead of basil, add a teaspoon of chopped capers, about 15 chopped kalamata olives (for god's sake, never use canned olives), and a handful of chopped parsley. With this sauce, rather than cheese, add the juice of half a lemon just before serving. The anchovies and olives add depth and smokiness, and the lemon adds a brightness that lightens the dish and enhances the flavor of the capers.

Want to get fancy? Toss in some sliced crimini mushrooms before the tomatoes. Let them brown, and give up all of their liquid. Grate a pinch of fresh nutmeg on the mushrooms, swap some fresh thyme for the basil, and use freshly grated black pepper rather than hot red pepper flakes.

Want to add meat? Before adding the tomatoes, add some sliced (or, better, crumbled) Italian sweet or hot sausage, some ground pork, some sliced chicken, or some bacon. Allow to brown, and then add tomatoes.

Want a thicker sauce? Start with crushed tomatoes. Stay away from cans; they're loaded with sodium (one brand has 300 mg of sodium per serving, and 13 servings per can!). Rather, buy Pomi chopped tomatoes. They come in a box, are imported from Italy, and taste almost as good as fresh. Let them cook at a slightly higher temperature, since they have more moisture.

Try different kinds of tomatoes! Grape tomatoes are sweeter. Roma (or plum) tomatoes are not as moist. Round "salad" tomatoes are slightly less acidic (and also less flavorful).

All of these sauces are infinitely variable, depending on your taste. Experiment! What have you got to lose? In the time it takes to cook pasta (which you'd have to do anyway), you can serve a delicious homemade tomato sauce that will blow any jar out of the water. Buon appetito!

Sweet, sweet basil.

Basil is one of my favorite herbs. Its smell reminds me of summer, it tastes great raw or cooked, and it's easy to grow. A bit too easy. As Science Guy is finding out, basil is prolific.

I've got some miracle basil growing. No, that's not a breed. I call it miracle basil because it came from nowhere. I started growing a couple of avocado trees two years ago (my intention is that, once global warming has fully kicked in, I'll have the only avocado plantation in the northeast). One of them is now about four feet tall, with a trunk - not a stem - thicker than my thumb. Last summer, it was living on my front porch. One day, I noticed something else growing in the pot, and leaned over to remove it. "Hmmmm...this looks like basil," I thought. Rather than pluck out the entire little plant, I gently rubbed a leaf between my fingers. "Smells like basil, too. Honey!? does this smell like basil to you?" My wife came out of the house and sniffed. "Yeah, it does. Where'd it come from?" "The avocado. No, seriously. Look." So I decided to leave it to see what developed. We've now got about a dozen three-foot-tall basil plants growing happily beside the avocado. My plantation is already expanding. I still have no idea where that basil came from, but it sure does taste good, especially in the middle of winter.

Basil, despite its being green, is a great source of the anti-oxidant beta-carotene, vitamin A, vitamin K, iron, and fiber. In addition to being loaded with flavonoids, its essential oils also have anti-bacterial properties which are effective against Listeria monocytogenes, Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli O:157:H7, Yersinia enterocolitica, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Simiply put, basil is good for you.

The best thing about basil, though, is its taste. Slightly sweet, slightly peppery, that overlying licorice/anise flavor, and that wonderfully fresh "green" taste all combine to make basil a terrific addition to a wide variety of foods.

OK, that really doesn't answer your questions, but it does point out that 800 pounds of basil growing in one's garage is not entirely out of the realm of possibility. So, what can you do with all of that green goodness? You've got several options.

First, you can eat it.

Try tossing some into a green salad. Or, slice some fresh tomatoes (which, by the way, are also easy to grow), add some shredded basil leaves, a clove of crushed garlic, a little chopped onion, some freshly ground pepper, a splash of olive oil, and a squeeze of lemon. Serve with some good bread and a glass of wine, and you've got a gorgeous and delicious light lunch or dinner.

Pesto! Traditionally made with a mortar and pestle (hence the name), it can also be made in a food processor. To the bowl of a food processor, add two cups of fresh basil (don't hesitate to use some of the stems here) and two cloves of fresh garlic (or more to taste). Pulse a couple of times to get things going, then slowly add a thin stream of olive oil while pulsing. How much? How much do you like olive oil? More oil makes a smoother, thinner, more unctuous pesto. Less makes a more hearty, more rustic pesto. But it's important to never leave the processor running, or you'll end up with soup. Add about half a cup of lightly toasted pine nuts. When the desired consistency is reached, transfer the pesto to a glass bowl, and gently mix in half a cup (or more) parmigiano-reggiano and either freshly ground black pepper or, for more of a kick, some dried red-pepper flakes. Add some acid (lemon juice, red wine vinegar, orange juice), ecco la pesto! Grandpa would be proud. If you want to keep the pesto, put it into air-tight jars, leaving at least an inch-and-a-half of room at the top. Cover with olive oil, cover tightly and keep in the fridge basically forever. Add a spoonful to tomato sauce, salad dressing, plain pasta, pollenta, grilled chicken, grilled fish (salmon is ideal), burgers, pork, steak...the list goes on and on. It's important to remember that each time you use some you need to put another layer of olive oil on top in order to seal it. The anti-bacterial qualities of the basil, while powerful, do tend to lose their effectiveness over time.

When cooking with basil, add it only at the end of the process, and generally when the food has been taken off of direct heat. Cut the basil into a chiffonade (stack the leaves on top of one another, roll into a cigar-shaped package and, using a VERY sharp knife, slice across the cigar into thin strips; the resulting shreds of basil look like chiffon, which is French for "rags") and let the residual heat of the food wilt the basil.

Second, you can dry it.

When the plants are mature, yank them up, roots and all, and hang them upside down in a warm, dry place. After some time (depending on humidity), they'll be completely dry. Spread some parchment paper (or wax paper) and rub the basil between your hands, allowing the flakes to fall onto the paper. Pour into an airtight jar and store in a cool, dark place. While the flavor won't last indefinitely, even after as long as a year, your dried basil will taste infinitely better than that stuff you've got in a jar in your spice drawer, which has probably been there since the dot.com bubble burst.

Finally, you can freeze it. Pull the leaves from the stems, rinse them in cold water, gently pat them dry, lay them out in plastic zipper bags, squeeze as much air from the bags as possible, and toss them in the freezer. When you need some, open a bag, break some off, refresh in warm water, pat dry, and you're good to go.

And what of the remaining 790 pounds? I'd recommend you get a stall at the local farmers' market, print up a sign that reads "Locally grown, free-range, organic basil," and charge $3.50 a bunch. In today's economy, it's the only market in which you'll get any kind of ROI.