I love making home-made tomato sauces, and cream sauces, and butter sauces ( one might say I’m saucy!) but I had never made vodka sauce before! Such a shame because I love it. 

When I’m making something for the first time that is supposed to turn out a certain way, and not just some recipe I’m making up, I usually look up several different recipes for the idea and then mix and modify them to make it my own. Here is what I came up with this time, followed by just a few things I’d do different next time.

Vodka Sauce:

1  29 ounce can tomato puree

1  28 ounce can crushed tomatoes

1/2 of a small can of tomato paste

1 1/3 cup chopped onion

2 tablespoons minced garlic

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon chopped fresh oregano

2 teaspoons chopped fresh parsley

1 teaspoon chopped basil

1 cup vodka

1 cup shredded parmesan cheese

1 1/2 cups light cream

In a large pot saute onions in butter and olive oil until just beginning to soften, add garlic and cook one more minute. Add in the tomato puree, crushed tomatoes, salt, sugar and vodka. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer covered for about 45 minutes. During this time you can shred your cheese and chop the fresh herbs. I cheated and used a package of shredded parmesan! After 45 minutes, stir in the herbs and cheese and continue to stir until cheese is melted. Slowly stir in the cream, and serve over penne pasta cooked according to package directions. This sauce would work with many other types of pasta.

Next time I would use heavy cream instead of light, and increase it to two cups.  My husband said that something tasted bitter, I think that may have been the basil that came from our plant, which is much smaller than other years and a bit yellow when I’m used to darker leaves. He said he thinks we got sweet basil previously, I’m not sure. I also read that I should have used a good quality vodka, I used Seagram’s, but my husband says he’s “Not going to buy an expensive vodka to use in cooking!” I’d have to do that when he’s not around

Note: I have a picture, but I’m going to have to add it a bit later. I would like to get a post published before 11 PM for once!

A quick question for you: I changed the look of the blog a bit so that only the most recent post shows the whole thing, and then the previous posts you have to click on to see. Is it better this way, or the old way where you just scrolled down and there was the previous posts?