Marinara Sauce

I'm a good italian-american in every sense of the word...except my marinara sauce sucks.
Maybe sucks is too strong, its passable, but sucks in comparison to my dad's, my mom's and my grandpa's and no matter how much I try and watch them I still can't get it right. Their sauce has a spicy, finger-licking, eat-it-with a spoon quality that I can't match. It's the kind of thing you can use to top pasta and call it a night, nothing else needed. The amazing thing is it cooks for very little time. In order for mine to get that same "bite" to it I need to cook it to a gravy with meat for hours, but anything tastes good when cooked with meat for hours.

Made a breakthrough today. I tweaked the recipe a bit and although it has a few more ingredients, I got it to what I want so there.

My quick and tasty marinara sauce:
2 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 large onion
1 large clove garlic
1/4 tsp celery seed (my addition to original recipe)
1 large can whole, peeled tomatoes (imported from italy preferably)
5, count them, 5 no frills, cheap, green olives from a jar (my addition to original)
Basil, pepper, oregano to taste
milk-optional

Chop onion and brown in olive oil. Add celery seed when onion browns on edges, cook for 5 minutes. Slice garlic and add to olive oil for a few more minutes. While all this is cooking slice your green olives. When the onion is brown and garlic is cooked, add the canned tomatoes and olives. Blend using stick blender until slightly chunky. Its okay if there are pieces of tomato and olive floating around, they make nice conversation starters. Simmer for 1/2 hour, add basil, oregano, pepper to taste. In 1/2 I had a sauce that could stand on its own. If your tomatoes were slightly acidic, or you just want to round out the flavor for a bit, add a drop of milk. I use 1% but it really doesn't matter.

This sauce on al dente fettucine makes me smile.