homemade marinara sauce thoughts/ideas

I have been living on my own for just over a year now and have been coming up with a lot of my own recipes. My recent ambition is to make my own marinara sauce, and was wondering if anyone had any secrets or anything to make it really special/different then what you buy in the cans/jars. I always use to take the stuff from the jar and just add stuff to it to make it better, but would like to try my own from scratch. So here are a couple of questions I have come up with when thinking of my recipe.

Is there a big difference between using fresh tomatoes and tomatoes from a can (diced, crushed, sauce, and/or paste)? If so do you have to pure the fresh tomatoes in a blender or will dicing them work?

Does anyone use a different sauce for pasta then they do for say a lasagna or any thing else that may use marinara sauce? My real motivation for making homemade marinara sauce was that i wanted to perfect a lasagna recipe, so just curious if people make different kinds of sauce depending on the application.

Does anyone have any classic, passed down through the generations from Italy sauce recipes? I would love to see them and see what makes them different. I am German and Irish so didn't have the luck to have any family sauce recipes passed down through the generations. :(

Any thoughts/ideas/recipes you guys may have would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

Okay. My step dad's family is Italian from Italy and he uses canned stuff to make his sauces. They are freaking amazing. I think it's because he puts high quality olive oil, lots of red pepper, and a little sugar in and cooks it for a long time. Also great with steak cooked in it (or meatballs.) Basil is definitely a must. He doesn't have an exact recipe though, and I've never made it, so unfortunately I can't share. He definitely makes it spicy, though! Yum, yum, yum!

If you want to make homemade sauce from tomatoes, be prepared for a b^tching evening. =/ I have done this before with mediocre results. First, you have to boil the tomatoes until they start to split so that you can peel the skins off. This is tricky because it's easier to peel them while they're hot. Then you have to seed them and crush them up. Then cook them over low heat for a long time. Like, an hour to two. Adding your ingredients such as basil and marjoram or whatever about half way through. You might want to puree it if you prefer a smoother sauce, but I like mine more chunky. It was really, IMNSHO, not really worth the effort to use fresh instead of canned.

I also recommend using dried ingredients instead of fresh because they can withstand the long cooking times better.

here's a simple, yummy recipe i developed.  quantities are approximate; i don't measure.

500g hot or mild italian sausage meat, browned, drained, rinsed, and set aside.
in the same pot, saute in olive oil:
   1 medium onion, diced finely
   2 cloves garlic, diced
   3-4 cups crimini mushroom
add:
   liquid (water, chicken or veg. stock, vodka or beer, whatever)
   one large can (or two small cans) tomato paste (i don't like the texture of tomatoes, so i use paste)
   1 tsp sugar
   dried basil & oregano to taste
   ground pepper to taste
returned cooked meat to pot

simmer and add water to desired consistency.

you'll never go back to a jar.

Marinara sauce is the easiest thing in the world to make.

Heat a little olive oil in the bottom of a heavy pot (not aluminum).  Saute some chopped onions until they soften, then add as much minced garlic as you like and saute for just a minute so as not to scorch the garlic.

Dump in canned tomatoes.  I like a mixture of tomato puree and diced tomatoes for texture.  Some people use puree and paste and add red wine to thin it down. 

Bring this up to just the boiling point.  Turn the heat down to a very slow simmer and then cover the pot with the lid slightly off to the side to allow some steam to escape and the sauce to thicken.

Check it every 5 minutes or so, stir to make sure it's not sticking or browning.  If it gets thick, add water, broth or wine, or even tomato juice.

After it's cooked for an hour, throw in some fresh minced basil.  Taste and add salt and pepper. 

Let it cool and freeze in pint or quart containers.

You can make this in a crockpot by cooking the onions and garlic in olive oil on high for 1/2 hour (watch it so it doesn't scorch!), then add the tomatoes and cook on low for 8 hours. 

Thanks for all the great ideas! 

It definitely gives me some great ideas to start on the perfection of my own recipe.  I love taking ideas from other peoples recipes and making them my own and experimenting with them until i get it right for me. 

So what makes these better then the stuff in the can or jar?  Is it just there are no preservatives/artificial things or something else?  Does anyone ever use parsley, oregano, thyme or any other seasonings? 

Thanks again for all the thoughts, I appreciate it!

Mine is pretty plain, but I am Italian (from the mainland):

Coat the bottom of a  pot in olive oil

add in meat from 3 hot italian sausage links  - take it out of the casing

add chopped onions and garlic (salting this will protect onions/garlic from burning)

when the meat is brown, pour in 2 of the larger cans of plain canned tomato sauce... (star cross works well). 

add salt to taste,  oregeno, basil, black pepper

Bring to boil - quickly turn down heat to low and simmer about 1 hour.

This is enough sauce to make 2 pounds of pasta... or you could make meatballs and throw them in & use 1 pound of pasta.

Also yummy - instead of the sausage, use chicken drumsticks.  Just brown like the sausage in the beginning.  This is called chicken caccitori.

Just FYI - Marinara is plain tomato sauce, no meat.  Bolognese is with ground meat.  There are so many regional variations and family recipes you can do just about anything.  My Abruzzo ancestors wouldn't think of making it without a piece of pork to start, no other meat, but served with meatballs.