Homemade Spaghetti Sauce
Just call me a domestic diva! Okay…not really. LOL But here we have another recipe post! What can I say, I wanted to make homemade spaghetti sauce for fun. The whole family loves pasta and I thought it would be something different to try. I found 1000 recipes online of course so I hodge-podged them together to make mine. It was DELISH and I would totally make it again. The only thing that would have made it better is homemade noodles. But that will have to be another day.
My first requirement was no meat. I don’t really eat red meat and honestly I don’t even like using turkey meat in my pasta. When I was pregnant with Lennox I would eat turkey meat straight out of the pan (before adding it to the sauce) but now…I won’t touch it. Who knows. So since I was not adding meat I thought I would sneak in some veggies and hope the kids wouldn’t notice. This was a fail of course. They caught the veggies but I still think they missed a few and they did eat the sauce even if they picked out some of the veggies. (Hey, I tried) My advice would be to cut them smaller! LOL
I also didn’t have all the spices on hand so I winged it a bit. I always have a hard time with this one. I am a baker (cooking is questionable), which means deviating from a recipe still involves science. You have to be careful or you will ruin your baked goods and they head straight to the garbage. With cooking I know you can toss in a little of this and a little of that and it takes a LOT of that to actually ruin. And by ruin? It may be a little salty or burnt or spicy but still edible.
Harlacher Farm Pasta Sauce
(vegetarian)
Ingredients:
2 tablespoons Olive Oil
1 medium onion (diced)
1 tablespoon minced garlic
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 (28oz) can crushed tomatoes
1 (15oz) can tomato sauce
1 (14.5 oz) can petite diced tomatoes
1 1/2 tablespoons white sugar
2 Bay Leaves
2 tablespoons Mrs Dash OR 1 tablespoon Oregano, 1/2 tsp thyme, 1 tablespoon basil
1/4 tsp or so of Red Pepper flakes
Pinch of Salt
1 med size Zucchini chopped to small pieces or shredded
1 Red Bell Pepper chopped to small pieces
Directions:
Heat the oil in a large deep pan over medium heat. Add the onion and cooke for a couple minutes. Add the Red Bell Pepper & Zucchini. Sauté for 4-5 minutes or so.
Add Garlic, mix in.
Add the tomato paste and mix well to coat.
Add tomatoes, tomato sauce, sugar, and all spices including the bay leaves.
Bring to a simmer and simmer with the pot partially covered. Cook for about an hour or up to 3 if you can. Stir occasionally, to avoid sticking to the bottom of pan. Turn down heat if needed.
Remove bay leave and serve over your pasta! Add more salt and pepper to taste if needed.
A couple of tips/suggestions
*I didn’t make mine too spicy since my kids were eating it. So I sprinkled red paper flakes to give a little flavor rather than 1/4 tsp. If no kids I would have added more.
* Since I didn’t have the spices needed I used Mrs. Dash. It was COMPLETELY fine. It had most of what was needed in the mix. You could prob use an italian mix too.
*You can cut up a garlic glove if you have it. We buy a giant jar of fresh minced garlic that we cook with so I used that.
* I added a little extra sugar to sweeten mine up (remember-kids). Cut it back to 1 tablespoon (or less) if you don’t want it sweet.
* There was enough extra that we divided into freezer bags to save for future.
If you use this recipe I would love to hear how it worked for you? Love it? Hate it? Modified it? Or if you have a special red sauce that you love feel free to share that as well!
Life Out Loud~
Whitney
www.blissstudio.net
www.lifeoutloudblog.com
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Farm Life @harlacherfarm
