Basic Pizza Sauce

Ingredients:
1 28oz can whole tomatoes packed in tomato puree or juice
2 fresh basil leaves (1 tsp dried)
dried oregano or marjoram
1 clove garlic (crushed)
2 Tbsp tomato paste
freshly ground black pepper
pinch of salt

Directions:
Pour the contents of the tomato can into a 2 quart, heavy non-aluminum sauce pan and coarsely crush the tomatoes with a fork or your hands. Add the herbs, garlic, tomato paste, pepper and salt. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring to mix the seasonings. As soon as the sauce begins to boil, turn the heat to low and maintain the sauce at a gentle simmer. Cook, uncovered, stirring from time to time, for a minimum of 15 minutes and a maximum of 1 hour. The sauce will keep for about a week in an airtight container in the refrigerator. It can also be frozen for up to 4 months.
Variation: for onion sauce, saute 1 small, finely chopped sweet onion in 2 Tbsp of olive oil until the onion is just translucent. Follow previous instructions for the basic sauce.
For meat flavored sauce, saute the meat of two Italian sweet sausages (removed from their casings and roughly crumbled) in 1 Tbsp olive oil. Cook the sausage meat for 1 to 2 minutes over medium heat until it is no longer pink. Follow instructions for basic sauce.