Note: I am pretty much now limited by my pot size unless we invest in something bigger! So this begins with a trip to Sam's or Costco. There, you buy
a huge bag of baby carrots (3 lbs or more)
a huge bag of onions
A huge bag of celery // I prefer celery hearts
Olive oil
Spices (trust me, you need this size!)
and then the large industrial size of canned tomato products. This recipe has
1 can tomato paste
2 cans crushed tomatoes
1 can diced tomatoes
2 cans tomato sauce
and I think I should have bought a second can of tomato paste. But who could really imagine using that much tomato paste!
So you start by getting out the food processor and chopping up all of the onion, carrot, and celery. You add this to a LARGE pot on the stove, and saute in olive oil with some garlic (I use about 1/3 to 1/2 jar of the minced garlic since I am too lazy to chop this much garlic!) You cook the mirepoix 10-15 minutes (depending on how well your burner heats a crazy sized pot).
Then we transfer everything outside to our propane burner. Here you open and add all of the tomato products plus lots of spices. I use fresh basil and rosemary from our herb garden PLUS a small bottle of dried Italian seasoning, some salt, a little bit of sugar (about 1/3 cup sweetens up this whole pot!) and/or individual bits of oregano and thyme to taste. Cook for several hours. I quit when I can't keep it from sticking! Then portion into small containers or ziplocks (once cool!) and enjoy. We heat this back up for spaghetti, lasagna, etc. It makes an excellent sauce for pennies compared to the jarred pasta sauce (and this tastes so much better!) Freezes quite well!
Note: If you keep making the recipe bigger, you will run into a problem that you don't have aspoon long enough to STIR the pot. This leads to my husband having to get the saw out in the garage and cut me a pice of wood (an extra clothes rod) long enough to stir the pot! Odd but effective. I think by next time, we will try to have an upgraded stirring device!
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2 comments:
So how do we convince you to share the small recipe you got in the class -- you know something we can make IN the house. . .
Ok, I'll take a stab at a smaller version, but realistically, I always just kind of season it by taste, so seasonings are approximate.
Cans are the regular / large cans at the grocery store (around 15 oz I think) except tomato paste which are smaller, so you use two cans.
Make a mirepoix by combining in a skillet or pot
1-1/2 cups onions (2 cups if you like them)
1 cup carrots
1 cup celery
with enough olive oil to cook until the mirepoix is tender, maybe 10 minutes over medium heat.
Add a few cloves of garlic and cook two more minutes (we love garlic, so this can be adjusted to taste)
Add to this
2 cans of crushed tomatoes
1 can of petite diced or regular diced tomatoes
1 can of tomato sauce
2 small cans of tomato paste
and continue to cook over low heat while seasoning. For me, I season to taste, so I season, sample, cook, season sample cook.
I would say that I generally like the premade "Italian Seasoning" plus I add a little extra basil, oregano, and thyme. Add salt to taste, and about 1 tsp of sugar.
I wish I could give you better seasoning proportions, but as with many of my recipes or cooking adventures, I usually season to taste, and rarely can account for exactly what ratios got me there! The longer you cook it the better (4 or so hours is great) but I can't ever get my stove or burner low enough, so I cook it until I have problems with it sticking (at least 1-2 hours) and then cover and let it sit for a few more hours to let the flavors mesh together.
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