stupidly awesome vegan tomato sauce

Sometimes you just wanna throw some butter on your spaghetti and call it a day. Other times you'll drop 10 bucks on a jar of good-ass pasta sauce, and kill the whole thing with a loaf of bread. Hey, I've done both, and I ain't mad at it. If you want to save some cashola, though, fugghetabout that fancy expensive sauce, and just make this one. It's good as hell!

Enough for 8 Servings.

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
10 cloves garlic, sliced
28 ounce can whole, peeled tomatoes, crushed by hand
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon dried Italian seasoning herb blend
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
1/4 teaspoon sugar
1/8 teaspoon pepper
15 leaves fresh basil

In a wide skillet or medium saucepan, add olive oil and garlic. Turn heat to medium low. Once garlic begins to sizzle a bit, reduce heat to low. Cook, stirring occasionally 10 to 12 minutes, until the garlic is golden with slightly toasted edges.

Add tomatoes, and stir in soy sauce, Italian seasoning, salt, sugar, and pepper. Add about 1/4 cup of water to the tomato can and swish it around to release any tomato puree remaining inside, and add that to the pan.

Increase heat to medium and bring to a low simmer (reducing heat again to medium low, if necessary, to find the right heat level for some low bubbling action), stirring occasionally, at least 20 minutes, and up to 1 hour.

In the last 5 minutes of cooking, hand-tear the basil, and stir it into the sauce. Once the basil is wilted, the sauce is ready to serve.

To store, let cool completely and keep in a covered container for a week, or freeze for a month.