Dear Lucia:  I just don’t have time to make a fancy red pasta sauce from scratch.  The best I can do is to buy something from a jar.  What is the easiest way to quickly turn the jarred sauce into something special?

~ Lisa on the Run

Dear Lisa:  I, too, use a jar sauce sometimes if I’m very busy.  What I do depends upon what type of sauce I am using.  If the label says tomato garlic sauce, then I won’t add garlic to it, but will add some calamata olives cut up and some cut up green olives.  Will also add about 1 tablespoon of rinsed and drained capers and maybe a pinch of red pepper flakes before I warm it up – which makes it more of a puttanesca sauce.

For a jarred tomato basil sauce, I’ll chop up 1 or 2 cloves of garlic and put a little olive oil in a small frying pan and sauté the garlic with a pinch of red pepper flakes.  Do not burn the garlic!  Add all this to the sauce along with some dried basil flakes or fresh basil.  Also, ½ to 1 teaspoon of fennel seeds added to the sauce gives it a good taste if you like a fennel flavor.

Mangia Bene!