The right jar

....of marinara. I typically like and make Giada's marinara but since the return of convenience foods to our house (about 4 months ago when Wesley was born), I've had to search for a good jar of sauce. In the past it was so rare that we ate a quick spaghetti dinner that even if I found a jar that I liked, the likelihood of me remembering the name was low. Recently I settled on Amy's Organic sauce even though it's pretty sweet. If you doctored it up with CM Italian sausage, it was good. Then I had to find some at Randall's and discovered the Bertolli Garlic and Olive Oil Marinara. I figured if they make a good olive oil, the sauce should be good. And now that we are bargain hunters (sort of), we decided to try Mario Batali's Marinara from CM. Evan gobbled it down on his spaghetti (with a bit of turkey sausage from the freezer). Then I made it into

Vodka Sauce with penne and scallops

1 jar Batali Marinara
3/4 C vodka
1/2 C heavy cream

It tasted almost exactly like my homemade sauce. It seems the secret ingredient is thyme. Who else but Mario would know to put something other than the typically italian sauce herbs in there. I'm sure he would argue that it is more traditional than tomatoes in the sauce so what do I know.