Why does everyone insist on putting a thousand ingredients into tomato gravy? It's traditionally just tomato and fresh garden herbs. The best recipe, in my family tradition is simple: Good tomatos blanched, peeled, and pureed (San Marzano if choosing canned tomatoes), a little salt, a little sugar, olive oil, fresh herbs, spoonful of tomato paste, and a splash of red wine. This can be cooked on low low low heat in a good sauce pot on the stove for 4 -6 hours or in a crock pot on low for 4 -6 hours. Occasionally my nonna would brown neck bones before adding all the other ingredients. That's all you need. You can even forget about the wine and the paste if you don't have it.

NOTE: The recipe calls for a TOTAL of 28 oz of crushed tomatoes and a TOTAL of 28 oz of tomato puree. I read it wrong the first time, and I bought waaay too much of both the crushed and puree. :-) Also, after I made it the first time, I later swapped out red wine for the water. I also added 1 large julienned zucchini, 4 oz of fresh white julienned mushrooms, and 1/2 lb of thoroughly cooked and drained mild Italian sausage crumbles to the Crock. These little changes just add a bit of variety to it, but the sauce recipe as written makes a good basic sauce to be tinkered with forever.