The dirty little secret lurking in most home cooks' pantries is a jar of store-bought tomato sauce. We all talk a good game about the pleasures of made-from-scratch red sauce, but let's face it--it's a time-consuming process that we don't always have the patience for. Now one company is making it okay to come out of the, um, pantry.

D.C.-based The Copper Pot Food Company uses leftover and blemished tomatoes from area farmers to make artisanal red sauces you'll be proud to flaunt. Choose from Blended Late-Harvest Tomato, simmered with yellow onions, olive oil and sweet basil for hours; Roasted Shallot & Barolo, enriched with robust wine from Italy's Piedmont region; or Smoky Bacon & Parmesan--"not your mother's pasta sauce," as the company website says.

The Copper Pot Company and its small-batch pasta sauces, jams, vinegars, and oils are the brainchild of former chef Stefano Frigerio. He left the restaurant business and created the prepared foods company to spend more time with his family. And now his Character Approved sauces let us spend more time with our families, too. You can order them online here.

[Images: The Washington Post, About.com]