We love tomato sauces so much. I can make a huge pot of sauce and it will be gone in under two days. Even when I make the kids eat it with "healthy" whole gran pasta and bread. Today I made two different types. One more marinara-ish, one with heavy veggies.
I have a couple of kids who are vegetarian, and we all like our sauces fairly... chunky, so the added veggies were a bonus. I'll make some turkey meatballs for those of us who are still carnivores.
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| Paris is weird in many ways, but some are very useful. For instance, she loves grating vegetables. Strange, right? I know! As a matter of fact, the Bean is weird, too, because they were fighting over who got to do it. |
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| They also like grinding up seasonings... strange little beasts, they are. It saved me scads of work, though, so its all good. |
Although I try to avoid buying ANYTHING in cans (since I can't seem to find BPA free anything), I actually buy the 'bulk' sized canned crushed tomato and diced tomatoes ("Es"? no "E"?? I can never figure it out. I apologize for my grammatical uselessness) mainly because I can't find any substitute that works for me. We buy fresh tomatoes in the summer at farmer's markets, but the ones at the store are just... eh...
I tend to throw a little bit of everything in my sauce. The above spices, sauteed onions, roasted garlic, shredded carrots & zucchini, beef broth and I just keep adding stuff until it tastes good. Which is a wonderful way to cook and be free... until your husband reminds you yet again that 14 years ago you cooked the best sauce ever and have never managed to replicate it once. You'd think at some point this would cause me to measure and write down a recipe. Yeah, not happening. But now I have pictures!
Now we have sauce to have with our spaghetti & meatballs casserole from my Clean Eating Magazine AND sauce for our whole wheat pita pizzas this week. And, of course, dipping sauce for our whole grain French Herbed Bread that I'll be making tomorrow. Yay!:)
I usually make a small pot with green peppers & mushrooms for my Hubby and Kainan just so that I don't have to eat them. Yep, I am probably the pickiest eater in the family after Abyni!
I *love* tomato sauces! I love to have french bread or garlic bread and dip it in marinara (or spaghetti sauce or whatever)!
ReplyDeleteI had never thought of shredding zucchini into it. I've never even prepared fresh zucchini. Do you shred it raw?
Elmo doesn't like chunky sauce (or anything healthy), so I usually make 1 sauce that doesn't excite me or 2 sauces.
I shredded it with some carrots and boiled them for just a little bit. Normally I'd just throw it in the pot and cook it long enough, but I was STARVING tonight and had to hurry along the process:)
ReplyDeleteI'd recommend just cooking it with whatever ingredients and then puree it in a blender to get rid of the "chunky". That's what I used to do... and we just gradually got 'chunkier' over the years.
Call me behind. I'm reading the whole blog. I LOVE the taste of tomato sauce, but HATE the mess it makes of my stomach. I think starting an actual fire in my gut would be less painful. Ideas? Other than using low acid tomatoes (which I will try this summer, if I can get some to grow).
ReplyDeleteFarmer Cat, I don't know off the top of my head. I wish I did!! That sounds awful. Is it just sauce, or is it any tomatoes at all?
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