Vegan pasta sauce

I wrote out the recipe for my pasta sauce for a friend and thought I'd share it here too :)
Don't mind my commentary! 

Maple's Vegan Red Wine Vegan Pasta Sauce (also gluten free, if you were wondering)

- 1 large brown onion chopped finely (I use my slicer dicer to do this, god is it wonderful!)
- 1 tablespoon+ minced garlic (we use a lot of garlic)
- 2 large zucchinis sliced into lots of half circles (wow this is fine recipe writing, lots of half circles, good one morgan lol, cut the zucchini long ways before slicing)
- 6+ button mushrooms sliced
- 1 cup+ of red wine (I just use a cheap shiraz)
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 jar of val verde pasta sauce
- 1/2 a cup of whole pitted kalamata olives
- 1 tablespoon+ capers
- 1/2 teaspoon dried basil
- 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

Ok so what I do is I sweat off the onion over a low to medium heat with some olive oil. Once they're soft I add my garlic and stir it around until the garlic is cooked, that shouldn't take long. Then I add about a 1/4 of a cup of red wine, then let that reduce. I'd add my salt at this stage too.
(At this point you could throw in 500g of mince if you'd like, add more wine and reduce. I sometimes add a can of borlotti beans in at this point too, but last night I forgot! If you do add mince don't brown it, this sauce has to simmer so it'll have plenty of time to cook later and not get tough.)
Then I throw in my mushrooms and zucchinis and lift the heat to medium to high, stir them around in the onion and garlic, then add about half a cup of red wine and reduce. (There's lots of reducing going on here).
Ok, so let that all sweat off for a bit, the mushrooms and zucchinis should be partially cooked and the juices (hehe) should be mostly gone. At this point I add the rest of the red wine, so 1/4 of a cup or more. Then I reduce that just a little until it smells reeeeeally good! (You got that, it should smell reeeeeally good! That's a technical term you know.)
Once it smells goodly, add your val verde pasta sauce, I put a little bit of water in the jar and swish it around to get the last bits out too. (If you're using any other brand of sauce, the simmering time might have to be longer as a lot of them have a very "tinny" taste, but I think there are a couple of other good ones out there).
So bring that to the boil. (This shouldn't take long as your previous reduction should have been bubbling away). But while it's heating up add your basil, oregano, olives and capers.
Taste the sauce to make sure there's enough salt, if not, add more.
Once that's boiling nicely lower the heat so the sauce is simmering. I let mine simmer with the lid on for 30minutes last night, but if you're making this earlier in the day you can always simmer it for longer to increase the flavour. If the sauce is too watery then simmer for a while without the lid on.

I chopped everything with my slicer dicer, it's amazing!!

So there you have it, it's even better the next day after a night in the fridge, yumm!

- Morgan