Another worthy contender!! This was a fun read for sure. Once you said the tomato sauce was strong I thought the exact thing you did, marinara or some sort of seasoned tomato sauce that tones down that tomato flavor. I know what it was missing, A few stray hairs... I think that is how Emeril makes his dishes taste so good,

I tend to double the meat on every recipe, so not to disappoint my inner carnivore. LOL Way to go out on a limb and take a gamble, sometimes you win and sometimes you don't, but you always learn something no matter what happens.