Have you ever tasted homemade tomato sauce?  From tomatoes grown in the dirt around your home.  Tomatoes that have been chopped on your kitchen counter.  Tomatoes that have simmered for hours on your kitchen stove.  Until the extra liquid has evaporated and the tomatoes have reached the smooth perfection of…homemade tomato sauce.

Last week I made homemade tomato sauce.  Then I diced up a leftover chicken breast (from a whole chicken that had boiled on my wood stove in a cast iron pan), and tossed it with pasta, artichoke hearts, mozzarella cheese chunks, and some Italian herbs.  Topping it with my homemade tomato sauce, making sure some cheese was near the top to peek its way through, I popped it in the oven.

The bubbling and browned delight that came out was absolute perfection.  Most especially because of the homemade tomato sauce.