Funny How Different Things Can Come Out...

I'm a big fan of marinara sauce done with roasted vegetables:

2 cans whole peeled tomatoes in juice
2 cups mire poix
garlic
2 tbsp capers
bay leaf
2 tbsp herbes de provence
2 tbsp dried oregano
1 tsp cayenne
1 tbsp fresh ground black pepper
salt
10 sun dried tomatoes, julienned
1/4 cup sugar
1 cup wine (red or white---I use this to get rid of old wine)

Preheat the oven to 450. Drain the tomatoes and reserve the liquid. Seed them. In a roasting pan, soften the mire poix (salted) for about ten minutes, and then add the tomatoes, garlic, capers. Transfer to the oven and roast until caramelized and all the excess water has been driven off. Meanwhile, reduce the tomato liquid and the rest of the ingredients (except the wine) by half. Remove the vegetables from the oven, allow to cool and deglaze with the wine. Combine the vegetables and wine mixture with the reduction, mash with a potato masher and you're done.

(Recipe was lifted from Alton's "Pantry Raid II" but adapted for my own taste and to remove the use of a broiler, which I could never get to work right.)

I've made it many times and as I don't have to go to the city today I made some. Of course anything home cooked will always come out a little different but it ended up being a lot better than in the past.

It wasn't the pans, those were the same as before.

Was it the stove? Gas is a "moister" heat than electric because water vapor is a byproduct of natural gas combustion (CH4 + 2O2 -> CO2 + 2H2O). I'm not sure why that would help when the whole point was to drive out moisture.

Maybe it was better wine? (I use recipes like this to get rid of leftover and had some red left by a guest.)

I ran out of sugar and had to substitute honey instead?

Maybe I'm just imagining things? :)