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Here are the ingredients for Tomato Sauce:

  1. 1 can of peeled round whole tomatoes, packed in tomato puree, if you can find it. Not the kind packed in juice. In the United States I like the US grown tomatoes, generally grown in California, the round tomatoes. 794 grams, or 28 ounces of weight appears to be the standard size can, in the US anyway. Or you could use the same tomatoes that come already diced in the can. You could use the equivalent amount of fresh tomatoes, or some of each. With fresh tomatoes, you'll have to blanch them in hot water to remove their skins, before dicing them. If you can't find tomatoes packed in puree, use tomatoes packed in juice, and add about a tablespoon of tomato paste. The smallest cans that tomato paste I've found have about 8 tablespoons of paste. Freeze the paste you don't use.
  2. 1.5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, plus 1.5 tablespoons unrefined sesame oil. That is about 20-25 ml of each kind of oil.
  3. A large handful of cilantro, fresh.
  4. Garlic powder. About 50 ml
  5. Cayenne pepper flour (powder, ground cayenne pepper). Probably less than a ml. Not enough to add a lot of heat, just enough for a tiny bit of heat, or even less.
  6. 1 medium sized to large sweet red pepper. Frozen if you can't find fresh.
  7. Salt to taste.
  8. Sugar to taste. I find maple syrup works well. Light molasses has too much molasses flavor, inteferes with the taste of the tomatoes. You could use partially refined sugar, refined to light brown or tan crystals, rather than to totally white. This has enough of the molasses flavor (and nutrients) removed so has not to cause a problem when combined with the tomatoes. If you can get real garden tomatoes, of the small cherry size, these are sometimes very sweet, and can enable you to dispense with some or all of the sugar. You can freeze tomatoes without blanching. For vegan garden tomatoes, you could just rinse them off, put into containers, put the containers in the freezer. Freezing can make the peels become even more conspicuous when you later thaw and cook the tomatoes. You could blanch and peel the tomatoes first before freezing, or you could peel them when they are partially thawed.
  9. Sesame tahini or sesame seeds. Maybe about 10 ml for the whole pot.

Dice the red pepper and steam in just a little water, for 10 - 15 minutes. You could peel the peppers before steaming, if you want. I skip that step. Cook until soft but not very soft. Arrange the amount of water so that there will be only a little water left when you are done steaming, just a few tablespoons. Use a pot large enough to handle the can of tomatoes you are going to add later. A three-quart pot works well. Do not cook tomatoes in aluminum. Stainless steel is good. Add only a couple of drops of olive oil, to prevent excess foaming.

Red-ripe peppers are much sweeter than green peppers. This means you don't need to add as much sugar to the sauce, to get good sweetness. If you have good garden tomatoes, you may be able to avoid using any sweetener.

If you use the whole tomatoes you will need to dice them, or whiz them tomatoes in a food processor for a couple of seconds. Tomato puree or juice rinses out of the food processor easily.

Add the tomatoes to the steamed red pepper.

Bring to a boil. Add garlic powder, cayenne pepper, salt, and sugar. Simmer for about 2 minutes. Remove pot from burner and place on trivit.

Let the pot cool for about 15 minutes. So that it is hot to touch but not so hot you can't leave your finger in it for about 10 seconds without burning it.

Wash and chop the cilantro, add it. It should wilt a bit, but not become thoroughly cooked in.

Add the oil. Or you could wait to just before serving, to add the oil.

When serving, heat to warm but not to hot. Spoon over pasta. Then add the sesame tahini only just previous to serving. You'll want only 2 or 3 ml mixed in for each portion of sauce. Less than a teaspoon. You could put the sauce on the pasta, then drizzle the tahini on top.

Instead of spooning sauce over whole wheat pasta, you could make pizza, by spooning sauce over a whole wheat pita.

If using a pita, microwave it for 30 seconds just to soften it but not make it too hot to handle. Fold up the edges so they will keep sauce from running off. Pour on the sauce, without the tahini. Mix the tahini with water so that you can dribble it on, over the top of the sauce. You can add a drop bit of salt and just a bit of sesame oil. Place pita in toaster oven on non-stick aluminum foil. Toast rather than bake or broil. This will heat both sides at once. If the bottom is starting to get toasty but the top isn't bubbling yet and the sesame tahini isn't just slightly browned yet, switch to broil and broil for a little while.