pasta sauce challenge

Recently my husband had a conversation with an acquaintance of ours regarding pasta sauce. Both Chef K, my moniker for him, and I put up tomato sauce for future use. They talked about my cooking process and his. After cooking, I use a food mill, which removes both the skins and tomatoes. Chef K uses an immersion blender that grinds the ingredients, including skins and seeds. My tomato sauce retains its natural red color, Chef K’s has a pink hue. 

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​As for ingredients, my sauce contains plum tomatoes, extra virgin olive oil, fresh garlic, salt and pinch of red pepper flakes. Chef K’s sauce: onions, peppers, Portabella mushrooms, garlic, fresh basil, salt, pepper, a mix of fresh garden tomatoes and plum tomatoes, olive oil (vegetables were roasted on the grill and then blended using an immersion blender) and is cooked for an hour and a half on the stove top.
 
Last evening, I cooked some pasta to try Chef K’s sauce. His sauce was flavorful, thick, but light tasting. As for flavor, it leans towards a garden flavor with to the blend of ingredients he’s chosen. The tomato taste was subtle as it blended with the other ingredients. I would have preferred a bit more basil flavor and some red pepper flakes for punch. These are just MY personal preferences as to what I like to taste in tomato sauce. Even though you may think Lidia Bastianich’s recipes for tomato sauce and marinara sauce sound similar, her ingredients for each are different.
 
I understand Chef K will be tasting my sauce today. I realize that my process is a bit more involved (hand-cranked food mills vs. immersion blend), but after making this tomato sauce for a number of years, this is the style of sauce my family prefers. Sorry Mom!