Spaghetti SauceNow, this recipe is a really loose one. I'm writing down the ingredients that I used for my latest batch. Anything you don't want, you leave out. Anything else you want to put in, you put in. Some of the ingredients are there for a reason, and do play an important part. You'll find that everyone has his own favorite way of making a sauce. Once you decide what you want and don't want, or what you don't have on hand, make the recipe your own. Even change it up from time to time. You might find that if you want to make your own sauce for a lasagna, this is WAY too chunky. Lose some of the veggies, at your discretion.
I have read some discussions about the differences between marinara and spaghetti sauces. And there seem to be as many opinions as there are cooks and sauces. Best explanation I've found so far is that marinara sauce definitely doesn't have meat in it, and is apparently on the thinner side rather than the thicker. Most marinara sauces I've seen in restaurants don't seem to be very chunky either. So call it whatever you want, and make it your own! Enjoy! Ingredients: 1 Tablespoon olive oil 2 bay leaves 1 onion, chopped 1 green pepper, chopped 1 rib of celery, chopped 2 carrots, chopped 2 to 3 cloves of garlic, minced 1 pound ground turkey, if desired (or beef, or sausage) 1 can (about 12-15 ounces) diced tomatoes in juice 1 can (6 ounces) tomato paste Hot water 1 zucchini squash, cubed Spices: (as desired) Salt (about 1 teaspoon) Pepper (about 1/2 teaspoon) Italian Seasoning Basil Oregano Directions: 1. Heat the oil in a large skillet 2. Add the bay leaves, then the vegetables, starting with the onion, pepper, celery and carrots. Saute for about 5 minutes, adding garlic and spices as desired. 3. Add the ground meat and cook and chop it in until it is cooked. (See notes) 4. Add the can of diced tomatoes and the can of tomato paste. Stir together. This mixture will be TOO THICK. 5. Add hot water to thin the sauce, starting with about 8 ounces. It should be enough to almost, but not quite, cover the top of all the ingredients. Mix everything together. 6. When the sauce begins to bubble, reduce heat to low and simmer. 7. About 1/2 to one hour before serving, add the zucchini cubes and let the sauce finish. Some things you might want to know: If you want to cook this uncovered, keep the heat nice and low. And keep an eye on it, you may need to add more water, but the smell will be great! Some of the ingredients that seem not-so-important are actually playing a huge role. The bay leaves, which were something I never kept around the house, give the sauce a very nice depth of flavor - another level. Remember don't serve the bay leaves. They are supposed to be taken out of the sauce toward the end of cooking. The carrots act as a natural sweetener, keeping the sauce from being too bitter. If you hear someone telling you about putting just a little sugar into the sauce, you can tell them that's what the carrots do. So go ahead and chop those carrots nice and fine. I grew up on Chef Boyardee canned pastas and sauces when I was a child, so needless to say, I tend to like my sauces just a bit on the sweet side. I use ground turkey when I'm making a meat sauce. Ground beef is great, and so is sausage meat, or cooked sausage, cut into coins. If you don't want to take the time and cook the ground meat INTO your vegetables, then go ahead and pre-brown it (and drain it if you want - knock yourself out) in a separate skillet. As far as the diced tomatoes go, you can use just about anything you want. If you use seasoned canned tomatoes "Italian Style," you'll need less seasonings of your own. If you use plain tomatoes, you'll need more. The other night, I had picked up a can of Italian Style stewed tomatoes of all things! My first instinct was to panic. But then I just took a kitchen knife, pulled the tomatoes out of the pan one by one and gave them a nice cut. They were fine. The tomato paste is what gives your sauce that nice deep red color. I still believe that if you cooked your sauce for a long long long long time, you could do without the tomato paste, because quite frankly, that's how tomato paste is made. Not in my house. Once you add that very thick paste, you need to thin it again with water. So, my opinion is that if you have some cans of plain tomato SAUCE, you could actually use them and add less water. |