The Parm is on!

Last week my coworker gave me two fresh eggplants straight from her garden. My eyes lit up like the Rockefeller Christmas tree! Eggplant Parm!!! Oh the pure joy of it! Even better yet, for date night, the hubby cooked! Heaven. Pure heaven. So alas, dear readers, the recipe I share with you tonight, is not my own. It is a Pierce, I uh, errrr, Mucci family tradition. (maybe a little bit of both)

I give you...homemade sauce.


2 28oz cans Cora whole plum tomatoes. (Please make sure to shake the cans in the grocery store, so that you get the least amount of juice, and the most amount of tomatoes possible ;-P )
1 can tomato paste and once it's empty, a can of water
1lb link sausage
3 garlic cloves
a pinch of sugar
a pinch of baking soda

Ok. Get ready to make a mess. All good sauces come from a good mess.

In a stock pot, heat up 3 T of olive oil. Start sauteing your garlic, I like mine minced, but the hubby states "Grandma never minced it, she cooked it whole". Reader's choice. Once you can smell the garlic, add in your link sausage. Cook these until they brown on the outside. I say don't cook em through all the way at this point, hubby says do. Again, reader's choice. Ok, so we're browning, and smelling, time to add in the tomato paste. stir that around til it's warmed through, then add in that can of water. You'll want to cook this little concoction until it reduces a bit. Meanwhile..time to make a mess. Git ur blender out folks. Ok, one can at a time, blend the heck out of the whole tomatoes and their scant amount of juice, because just like a good little old italian lady, you shook the cans, just like I told you to. One they're pureed to divine perfection, I say dump em in the pan, but according to the little old sicilian who I'm related to by marriage, that's not how you do it. If you fell like taking the extra time to strain the seeds out of the pureed tomatoes, by all means. Go for it!!

Ok, so back to the sauce. We've poured in out two cans of tomatoes. Without the seeds. Give her a good stir. Now it's time to add in that pinch of sugar. And we're stirring....Ok next, it's time to add in that pinch of baking soda. Cool science experiment. Watch as your sauce begins to boil boil toil and trouble...

OH WAIT! I forgot to tell you the most IMPORTANT of ingredients!!! CHEESE!!! About 1/2 cup of pecorino romano. Must have it!!!

Add in you cheese. Now it's time to simmer. And simmer. Simmersimmersimmer. For about 2 1/2 hours on as low as you can go without turning your stove off.


goo stuff folks. Now go slather it all over the eggplant parm cutlets you've procured while that sauce was a simmerin.