Jon

You should come over for dinner. :)

I munched on some of those last night. :)

Amen.

My recipe is simple:

Take a 28-oz can of whole plum tomatoes. Drain the juice and set that aside, in case you want to thin the sauce later. Take a fork and mash up the tomatoes inside the can. Set aside. Chop a bunch of olives and set those aside, too.

Chop up a couple tablespoons garlic and one small dried chile pepper. Heat 2 tablespoons oil in a pan (medium heat), then sautee the garlic and chile several minutes, until golden brown.

Add about 2 tablespoons capers (drained), the chopped olives, and about 3 tablespoons of tomato paste. Mix it all together, trying to break up the tomato paste. (I also add 1/2 teaspoon or so of anchovy paste at this point, but it should work okay without it, for vegetarians.)

Put the canned tomatoes in the pan. Add salt (at least 1/2 teaspoon, more is okay) and pepper. Turn the heat up a little bit, and stir everything in well. Every once in a while, smash the tomatoes with a spoon, to try and break them up. Stir occasionally.

When the juice is mostly cooked off, and the tomatoes look more like sauce than they do tomatoes, it's done.

This shouldn't take much longer than making the pasta. I'd start the pasta water boiling no later than when the canned tomatoes go in, and possibly as early as the beginning of the process, if your pasta will take 10 or more minutes once put into boiling water.