Basic Tomato Sauce

You will need:

- Large saucepan
- Knife
- Chopping board
- Wooden spoon
- Vegetable peeler

- A medium sized onion
- A clove of garlic
- Dried oregano
- Tin of tomatoes
- Tomato puree
- 1 X Carrot
- 1 X stick of celery
- Olive oil

1.  Start by finely chopping the carrot, celery, garlic and onion.  Put about a tablespoon (here after known as a 'glug') of olive oil into the saucepan and put over a medium heat.  

2.  Once it is warm add a teaspoon of oregano and the chopped vegetables.  Cook them slowly to allow them to soften and release their flavours.  This is known as 'sweating'.  Stir them often to stop them from sticking to the pan.  

3.  When the onion has turned yellow and is slightly translucent, add the tin of tomatoes and a dessert spoon of tomato puree and stir. Leave for a few minutes and then taste the sauce.  Tinned tomatoes can require a little sugar to sweeten them.  It is also the time to add salt and pepper.  Heed on the side of caution and add a little and then taste.  You can always add more but can't take it out.  Leave on a low/medium heat for 15 minutes.

This is a quick and easy sauce which goes well with pasta.  If you have frozen peas/sweetcorn you could add them whilst the sauce is cooking or add some grated cheese to the top.  If you have a few rashers of bacon that need eating, you could cut them up and cook with the vegetables at the beginning to add a bit of protein.  One of my brother's favourite ways to cook this sauce is to make it into 'breakfast pasta' with sausage/bacon, mushrooms and a tin of beans. 

One of my personal favourite variations of this pasta sauce for children is for 'traffic light pasta'.  The tomatoes obviously are the red but you add a yellow/orange pepper, sweetcorn for the amber and then peas, courgettes or spinach for the green.  It's a good recipe to get children involved in because they can help to pick the traffic lights. (If you want to continue the theme you can get tricolour pasta)

If you have a bit of extra time you can make a classic tuna pasta bake (staple end of the month food from my childhood)  Add a tin of tuna towards the end of cooking, put cooked pasta into the sauce, stir and then transfer to a baking dish.  Cover in grated cheese (and bread crumbs if you have a few slice on the turn) and bake in a medium oven until the cheese is golden.
   

Storecupboard essentials

NB: This is not an exhaustive list, just the things you will need for the basic recipes.  The variations will require extras.

In the cupboard:

- Tinned tomatoes
- Tomato puree
- Salt
- Black pepper
- White pepper 
- Dried herbs - Thyme, Oregano
- Mustard
- Nutmeg (Please buy a whole nutmeg and grate it when needed.  It makes all the difference I promise) 
- Olive oil 
- Sunflower/vegetable oil
- Plain flour


In the veg box:

- Onions
- Carrots
- Garlic
- Celery

In the fridge:

- Milk
- Butter
- Eggs 

Equipment

- Large saucepan
- Medium saucepan
- Frying pan
- Wooden spoon
- Tin opener
- Vegetable peeler
- Cheese grater
- Sharp knife
- Chopping board

Not a massive list but I assure you, you can make 3 different meals out of this list.  Of course, you will need other things to go with the basic recipes.  I always like to keep a variety of pasta shapes, rice and cous cous/bulgar wheat along with adaptable ingredients such as sausages/bacon, peppers, courgettes.  It really depends on what you buy in your weekly shop.  You know what things you like and once you gain confidence in cooking it can be fun to experiment with new ingredients.

I had thought of doing a glossary of cooking terms with this list but the decided to leave that to Delia.  I'm sure everybody knows how to use Google if there is something they don't understand.  Like I said before, these are very simple recipes.  I am not a chef. 

Let's start at the very beginning...

...that's a very good place to start.

A while a ago I was made redundant from my job as a Family Support Worker.  I always described my job as a cross between 'How Clean Is Your House' and 'Supernanny' but actually it was much more than that.  Cooking with families was something I did regularly.  Not only fun stuff with children but helping parents to budget, do meal plans, write shopping lists and teaching them basic cooking skills.  As I was considering my time of unemployment I came up with the idea of transferring what I have done with these families to a blog.  


I should make it clear - I am a home cook.  I have no formal training and have learnt how to cook from watching my parents, reading cook books as though they were novels and cooking meals from an early age.  It is my belief that anybody can learn to cook with the right ingredients.


The main idea behind this is that you can basically have a pretty decent (and inexpensive) diet from 3 recipes (and variations thereof).  I have found that so called 'beginners' cooking courses teach people how to make a variety of interesting and delicious things but neglect, what I consider to be, the fundamental elements of cooking.  Don't get me wrong, I like a homemade quiche as much as the next person, but it's not exactly something I would make on a regular basis.  Especially on a budget with the time restraints that most parents encounter daily.