Feelin' Saucy

Have you ever opened up your cupboard to realize you only have tomato paste when you really need tomato sauce? Well I have. And more than once. In fact, it just happened the last time I made Sloppy Joes.

Enter my good friend Google. Solves many a quandary, especially in the kitchen. Here's how I made sauce from paste. I had a small 6 oz. can of tomato paste and added 1 ½ cups water to it. Yep, that's it! Some people suggest adding a little brown sugar to sweeten it, but I didn't find that necessary in my recipe. I was so happy with the results, I will never buy tomato sauce again!

Apparently the mom in me focused on the cute kitchen help instead of the ingredients. However, if you look closely you can see our homemade tomato sauce in the background on the stove.

Psst. If you only have tomato sauce and need tomato paste, I hear you can cook it in a pan until it is reduced by half. I've never tried it though, so let me know if you do and it works {or doesn't}! And while you're thinking about sharing, do you have any substitution tricks up your sleeve?