Making Pasta when you run out of Tomato Sauce

So being Italian means one of my favorite foods is anything with pasta or chocolate :). So for my family whenever we want a quick easy meal we make spaghetti. Unfortunately for me I am out of spaghetti noodles and tomato sauce and there is so much snow I probably will not be able to go to the store soon. Some people would probably look for a tomato sauce less pasta recipe but to me spaghetti is not spaghetti is there is no sauce So I had to figure out what to do because my oldest wanted to have meatballs.

I decided to just use rigatoni noodles because that was the first box I grabbed out of the cabinet. Put the water on to boil while I started on the meatballs and figuring out the sauce.

My oldest loves cooking with me. I let hims cook the noodles (while I am watching and standing right next to him).
Next I mixed up the meatballs. I put 1lb of ground beef, bread crumbs, 1 egg, asiago cheese, salt, pepper, garlic and onion powder. Mixed it all up and then used my small scoop to get meatballs in uniform size. Then dropped them into a mini cupcake pan that had been greased. Put the pan in the oven at 350 for around 20-25 mins. I have a gas oven so things cook faster than using other ovens.

After I put the meatballs in the oven I decided to look online and see if I could use tomato paste to make tomato sauce. I figured it was concentrated tomato it should work. After I looked at a bunch of different sites I decided to give it a go. I took 2 cans of tomato paste and emptied them into a sauce pan. Next I added 3 cans of water and turned the burner on medium.

After the paste and water were mixed I added some salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder and Italian seasoning. I saw that some sites recommended that you add a pinch of sugar to overcome the tartness. You should really go by taste when it comes to the sauce. Marjoram, oregano, basil, parsley, garlic powder, onion powder, salt and pepper are all good seasonings are all good to add. Then just let it simmer for about 20 mins until nice and saucy.

Then add everything to a bowl and top with tons of cheese and sauce.

Try not to burn your mouth while eating it up. Also good luck saving leftovers especially if you are a pasta eating family :)