Why is there so much sugar in my damn spaghetti sauce?!!

I maded pictars.

The raw ingredients. Note: that's a white carrot, it's supposed to be that color. The two smaller tomatos are from the garden. Also it turned out I didn't have an onion, so I used some Asian-style fried onion bits, and I only had two olives, so I just ate them.

This is how I chop the tomatos. Quarter them lengthwise, then cut across the quarters. Takes 2 seconds each.

Carrots, peppers, garlic

Into the pot w/the hot oil.

Throw this lot in after a few mins.

At this point my water started boiling & I was ready to put in the noodles. I let the sauce go for a tiny bit longer and then turned it down & plonked the lid overtop.

I use ~half of one of those packets for myself. Dried tortellini has to cook for a while, like 15 mins, so that's how long the sauce simmers down for.

Just as the noodles were ready, it looked like this. Perfect.

Served!

This is not exactly artisan gourmet Italian fine cuisine, if your name is Dominic your grandma would probably scoff at me. It's fast food; I started at 9:30PM and when I sat down to eat it was 10:07 and that included time to lay out the ingredients & take photos. But it's awfully good and healthy. No added sugar beyond what was in the fruits & veges.

This obviously made one serving for me. If you're feeding a family with childrens you can easily expand the recipe out and I guarantee they will enjoy it¹, especially with some grated cheese & garlic bread.

(¹ Not actually guaranteed; children may be philistines.)

In reply to Jerry From LA:

Mmmmm, pasta Bianco.

I'm sorry, maybe it's just me, but we're complaining about the amount of sugar in a store bought pasta jar, when we're going to pour it onto a plate of pasta, and maybe add some bread as a side? What's wrong with this picture?

In reply to Klayfish:

It really has nothing to do with the sugar content, it has to do with a sauce that tastes sweet. Spaghetti sauce shouldn't taste like syrup. It should taste like tomatoes, meat, and spices.

My first thought was that you'd thrown a parsnip into the sauce.

Jay - 2~3 diced roma tomatos (they've been sitting on my window sill for five days, they're pretty ripe. Note: NEVER EVER refrigerate your tomatos unless you've already cut them and are trying to save a half or something!)

Why not? I don't eat tomatoes while, but the baby does. I usually just cook with them. But why shouldn't I keep them in the fridge? I don't remember hearing that before, so I'm genuinely curious.

I've got some weird gnats in my kitchen so the tomatoes from the garden went to the fridge to avoid being eaten.

^^ It destroys the texture and flavor. For supermarket tomatos, which are generally picked well green and stored in cold rooms for weeks it doesn't matter so much, but if you have good, fresh ones picked ripe off the vine (farmer's market, etc.), refrigerating makes them taste ... well, like supermarket tomatoes.

I hated tomatoes when I was a kid; turns out we never had good ones and they were always stored in the fridge. When my family started growing them ourselves when I was in my mid teens, I suddenly couldn't get enough of the things. World of difference.

Jay wrote: ^^ It destroys the texture and flavor. For supermarket tomatos, which are generally picked well green and stored in cold rooms for weeks it doesn't matter so much, but if you have good, fresh ones picked ripe off the vine (farmer's market, etc.), refrigerating makes them taste ... well, like supermarket tomatoes. I *hated* tomatoes when I was a kid; turns out we never had good ones and they were *always* stored in the fridge. When my family started growing them ourselves when I was in my mid teens, I suddenly couldn't get enough of the things. World of difference.

Yeah, good raw tomatoes are nearly impossible to find unless you grow them yourself or get ones ripened on the vine straight from the grower. Canned tomatoes are often a better starting point if you're making something that needs cooked tomatoes, since these are often allowed to ripen properly.