Homemade Pasta Sauce

Last week we talked about how to roast tomatoes and garlic. "What do I do with 16 roasted tomatoes?", you might ask yourself. Roasted tomatoes and garlic are the secret ingredients to my fabulous (yes, it really is!) Homemade Pasta Sauce (Try it, you won't want sauce out of a jar ever again). I will roast 15-16 tomatoes on a baking sheet and then use them all to make a huge pot of pasta sauce. It freezes well in any size container. At the beginning of the week I will move a container from the freezer to the fridge where it is ready to heat up to put over pasta or spaghetti squash for dinner any night of the week. 

I don't have a written recipe for my pasta sauce, so I'll just tell you how I do it and try to give you amounts. Like I said, I typically make a huge pot with 15-16 roasted tomatoes, so keep that in mind if you are making a smaller batch with only a few tomatoes.

Ingredients:
Olive Oil

1 Med-Large Onion (white or yellow), chopped

Garlic - 1 Whole Head, roasted (click here for technique)

15-16 Roasted Tomatoes (click here for technique)

1 Large Green Pepper (or red or orange), chopped

1 -2 Carrots, chopped

1-2 Stalks Celery, chopped

Handful Basil Leaves, chopped
1 Tbsp Oregano

Sea Salt, to taste

Black Pepper, to taste

Red Pepper Flakes

NOTE: Regarding the peppers, carrots & celery...if I have them, I use them. If I only have one of them, I use it. This recipe is not dependent on having all three. They add great nutrition and robustness to the sauce, but are not necessary for a great sauce. Also, everything can be chopped very roughly because it will be blended in the end.

ANOTHER NOTE: Because this sauce is homemade from fresh ingredients, it turns out more orange than red. We are so used to the red sauce we get from a jar or can (coloring added) that it may seem strange at first to see the light red or orange color of fresh homemade sauce. The flavor is so wonderful that you will soon forget that the color is different.

Technique:

Pour a couple tablespoons of olive oil into a large pan or pot and turn on medium high heat. Add chopped onion, pepper, carrots and celery. Saute for a few minutes until onions are clear. Add tomatoes (just pick them up whole off the tray and put them in the pot) and garlic (the whole roasted head, that you squeezed out). Add a couple of pinches each of sea salt and black pepper and 1 tsp of red pepper flakes. (add more as it cooks if you like a bigger kick).


With your wooden spoon, break up the tomatoes; they are soft and roasted and will smash easily. Add a handful of roughly chopped basil, (if using dried basil add about 1 Tbsp) and 1 Tbsp of oregano. Break everything up and mix together. Turn stove on low and simmer 15-30 minutes.


If I have time, I let it simmer longer...just makes for better flavor. When done simmering, turn off the stove and let it sit there. The flavors will continue to meld and intensify as the heat dissipates.


When it has cooled down, scoop it up into the blender. I don't really worry about exactly how much of everything gets into each batch I blend because I pour it into a giant bowl after blending. Continue to mix one blender full at a time until the pot is empty and the sauce is now completely blended and poured into the giant bowl. Then I can mix it up with my wooden spoon, making sure that the seasoning is fully mixed in. Once it's mixed up, I scoop it into containers for the freezer.


This pic is one that was in my freezer. My hard drive crashed and I lost a lot of pictures (Yeah, I know, I should have had them backed up!) so I am now short of pics for posts that I had planned. If I wait until I make another batch of homemade pasta sauce in order to get pictures of the pot, blender and bowl of sauce, it might be a while til you get this recipe. I promised the recipe, so will make do with the pics I have.


I absolutely love this pasta sauce and I'm confident you will too. Doug and I like it a little spicy, so I add more red pepper flakes. It is so good over spaghetti squash or angel hair pasta. Sprinkle some fresh parmesan or parmigiano reggiano on top for true Italian flavored homemade pasta sauce. Mangia!


What is your favorite thing to do with pasta sauce?

Healthy Habits: Homemade Stewed Tomatoes

Now, why would you stew tomatoes yourself when you can buy them quite inexpensively at any supermarket? One taste, and you'll see that there is just nothing like homemade. If you've got a big tomato harvest or picked up a basket at the farmers market or your local food co-op, you'll love this recipe.

I'll just apologize right now for not having a picture. I'm still trying to get in the habit of remembering to take pictures of everything I make (seems to be a difficult habit for me to form, but I'm trying). I had these stewed tomatoes cooked and stored away in the fridge before I even realized I had not taken a single picture. Instead, you get pictures of hearts and tomatoes (that I found on google images), because I like hearts and I like tomatoes. I console myself with knowing that if you like stewed tomatoes you already know what they look like.

These stewed tomatoes are made in a pressure cooker. Remember your mom's pressure cooker...an unstable pot that looked, and sounded, like it could blow at any second?! That was my memory and impression of a pressure cooker until a couple of years ago. I came across a bunch of recipes for a pressure cooker that all sounded really good. I wondered why anyone in this day and age would use one of those horrible pots. I remember watching the little steam valve jiggle around, looking like it was going to jump off the top of the pot, while the steam was spraying into the air, looking and sounding like a small steam engine. As a kid, it was kind of a scary contraption.

So I began to research pressure cookers. I was completely surprised to find out how much they have evolved in the last two decades. The latest generation of pressure cookers operate with a spring loaded valve (often hidden from view), do not release any steam vapor when in use, and often have two or more settings. With the use of current technology, pressure cookers have become lighter, quieter, safer and much easier to use. (There's even an electric pressure cooker available).

So...I bought one. Let me just say...Chicken Cacciatore in 20 minutes, (INCLUDING prep time) that tastes amazing, is AWESOME!! Now I'll have to make Chicken Cacciatore so I can take a picture and post that recipe. It alone made it worth the purchase.

But back to tomatoes. I am a HUGE fan of stewed tomatoes. I love heating up a can and eating it like a bowl of soup. I guess it kind of is soup, isn't it? But homemade anything always tastes so much better and doesn't have preservatives (or anything else my body doesn't need) in it. Especially when it only takes 5 minutes prep time and 5 minutes cook time.

So here's the fabulous Stewed Tomato Recipe...

What you need:

3 Cups Quartered Fresh Tomatoes

3/4 Cup Finely Chopped Celery

1/4 Cup Finely Chopped Onion

1 Tbsp Chopped Fresh Parsley or 1 tsp Dried Parsley Flakes

1/4 tsp Salt

1/4 tsp Black Pepper

Technique:

Spray a pressure cooker container with cooking spray. (Butter flavored cooking spray is good here). In prepared container, combine tomatoes, celery, and onion. Add parsley, salt and pepper. Mix well to combine. Place cover on cover and bring to LOW pressure over medium heat. Lower heat to stabilize pressure and cook for 5 minutes. Remove from heat, wait for pressure to be released, remove cover, and stir.

Makes 4 (3/4 cup) servings.

32 calories per serving.

What kitchen tool do you own that has evolved a great deal since the time you first saw your mom use one?