Tomato Sauce with White Wine, Shallots and Garlic

 Why is alcohol so good? I mean of course having a glass is amazing but I'm also talking about in food...because , some of my most favorite pasta sauces have either wine or vodka in them.

I was making my vodka sauce the other day with white wine (since I was out of vodka) and I was tempted to skip the last step of adding heavy cream to it and eat it how it was in the skillet because it just looked so pretty and smelled so good. So the next day, I did just that and here we are! SO this is basically my vodka sauce minus the cream and butter with wine + fresh garlic and shallots living in the sauce. You could leave the diced garlic and shallot as is in the sauce for texture or puree them like I did for a smoother sauce.

What you need:

• 1/2 lb pasta
• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1 shallot, diced
• 2 garlic cloves diced
• 3/4 cup white wine (I used Kim Crawford Sauv Blanc)
• 3 tbsp tomato paste
• 3 tbsp reserved pasta water

What to do:

• Cook the pasta in salted boiling water for as long as the package instructs. 
• Heat the olive oil in a large skillet and cook the onions and garlic in it until translucent (around 5 minutes.) Add the tomato paste in halfway through and spread it out over the surface of the skillet.
• Once the tomato paste is a brick red color and the onions/garlic are translucent, add the wine and whisk everything to combine. You should see some of the wine evaporate right away or else your heat wasn't high enough.)
• Transfer the sauce into a food processor and blend until smooth. Return to skillet. (Not required but suggested for a smoother sauce texture.)
• Switch the stovetop heat to its lowest setting and stir the sauce every few minutes until the pasta is done cooking. (If it's thickening up a ton you can add a tablespoon more of wine to it and maybe switch it to another stovetop station that's less powerful.)
• Reserve a few tablespoons of the salty/starchy pasta water and add it into the sauce to loosen it up a bit. Add the cooked pasta to the sauce, mix and serve hot.
• Note: if you didn't salt your pasta water enough you. may need to season the finished product with a little salt.