Homemade Italian Tomato Sauce

This is a recipe that my tutor in Italy taught me to make. We would cook when I got tired or frustrated with parsing verbs and learning vocabulary and parts of speech. She was a very patient teacher and this is one of my favorite recipes that she shared.

Ingredients:
6-7 pounds of tomatoes (a mix of roma, red, and yellow are really good.)
2 onions
4 cloves of garlic, sliced
1-2 large carrots, cut into chunks
Handful of fresh basil leaves, torn not chopped
1-3 tsp. salt
1-3 tsp. sugar, optional (if you have yellow tomatoes you don't need it)
2-3 Tbs. extra virgin olive oil

You need enough tomatoes to fill a two handled pot. Cut out the tops of the tomatoes and cut in half.** Add 2 onions cut in chunks, a couple of cloves of garlic, and a handful of fresh basil (Tear the leaves, don't cut), and one large carrot-cut in chunks.
Cover the pot and put on medium heat stirring occasionally. Don't add any water or salt; the tomatoes have enough water in them.

After the tomatoes and carrot are soft. Mash through a sieve. I have a victoria strainer with a crank handle. Catch all the juice in another pot, and mash till all that's left are the skin and seeds. It takes a while and you need a lot of muscle in your arm to crank all the juice and pulp out.

After you finish getting the juice and pulp, put back on medium heat (make sure there are no chunks). Add to taste salt, sugar, olive oil, and more basil (approx. 1/2T. salt, 4T. sugar, 1/2c. oil. More or less to taste). The sauce is ready when it cooks down, and gets more dense. It can be used for pasta or pizza sauce.

**You can also blanch the tomatoes in boiling water, take off the skins and scoop out the seeds. Then instead of mashing the tomatoes through the strainer, if there are no skins/seeds, you can puree in a food processor or blender.