Ever since I made the decision to try to spread my cooking wings, I have been making a noble satisfactory valid effort to step out of my comfort zone in the kitchen. (Remember, my “comfort zone” was right about at you-just-can’t-get-any-worse-than-this, so there really wasn’t anywhere to go but up.)

The turkey/rice wrap and omelette I made were (dare I say) successes. I even cooked some perfectly hard-boiled eggs, thanks to these easy-to-follow directions.

And since so many of you were kind enough to share recipes with me when I first sent out the SOS signal for help in the kitchen (or, in my case, kitchenette), I decided the least I could do was attempt some of those very recipes and see how I measured up. No pun intended.

The first recipe on my list? Tomato sauce. Why? Firstly, not one, but two of my friends sent it to me. Secondly, it calls for just 3 ingredients. Simple. Minimalist. I like those things in a recipe.

And since there were only 3 ingredients for me to find, I wanted to get exactly what the recipe called for. So while I had to do a little searching, I did finally find ingredient #1, San Marzano whole peeled tomatoes in a can, at the Food Emporium. Ingredient #2, unsalted butter, was easy enough. Ingredient #3? A medium yellow onion. I’m not gonna lie – I had to read the labels in the produce section to make sure I was grabbing the right kind of onion. It feels both freeing and sad to share that.

When I got back to my apartment, it was first, of course, time for a photo op:

Then it was time to get down to business. “Business” meaning putting the contents of the can, 5 tablespoons of butter and the peeled/halved onion in a pan…

…and stirring and simmering for 45 minutes:

When that was done…

… I set it aside and cooked the pasta. Just a tad too much for the pan, perhaps. Oh, and I probably could have broken it in half. Go ahead, you can laugh:

The pasta actually cooked pretty evenly, though, and it was finally time to enjoy the final result:

(The flowers around the paper plate are there to class it up. Just go with it.)

And I would be remiss without posting a picture of myself with my soon-to-be-enjoyed meal… it’s my signature pose (because “signature” in my book = doing something twice):

So there you have it. And I must say, it was a delicious tomato sauce. I could maybe go a little lighter on the butter next time, but overall it was amazing. I couldn’t believe something so simple to make could taste so incredibly yummy. And it was great for leftovers, too… I had the rest for dinner the following night and it was still wonderful.

I’m going to tackle a chicken recipe next. I’m not a fan of raw meat, so this will present a new challenge… but one I’m ready to take!