thrown-together pasta sauce

Sometimes I wish I were the kind of cook that carefully plans out recipes, tweaks them a little bit with each making, settles on the very best version and prepares it that way every time from then on out. But alas, like most things I do, my cooking follows the "throw it all in a pot and see if it works" plan. You might not be surprised to find that this works better in the kitchen than it does in life...but I digress.

Yesterday I put together a wonderful tomato-cream sauce. It began because I thought I had defrosted some ground turkey (to make a chili) only to find that the meat was actually Italian sausage. So much the better.

Ingredients

1/2 lb mild Italian sausage, removed from its casing and broken up into bite-sized pieces
1 24 oz can whole tomatoes
1/2 onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
10 baby carrots, sliced (or use 2-3 whole carrots - I had small ones around)
1 tbs dried basil
1/4 c half n half
salt and pepper to taste
1 tbs olive oil

Saute the onion, carrots and garlic in olive oil until softened. Add the sausage and saute until cooked. If you'd like, you can pour or spoon out any grease in the pan at this point.

Break the whole tomatoes up with your hands (just give each on a squeeze) and add them and the liquid from the can to the pot. Bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Add the half n half and salt and pepper to taste. You're ready to serve, but you can let it simmer up to an hour.

Pair with your favorite pasta. I used rotini, because the little spirals catch a lot of the liquid in the sauce. This made enough for about 4 servings.