Hearty Loaded Vegetable Sauce
I needed some pasta type sauce for a recipe I have on my plan for this month. Since I used all of our marinara sauce in the lasagna, I needed to make more. This stuff reezes REALLY well, so I make a LOT.
Because of the recipes I have planned, I wanted this to be REALLY chunky and loaded with lots of veggies. I stopped by the store and bought my ingredients:
1 Inusdtrial sized can (105 oz) of Crushed Tomatoes
1 Industrial sized can (105 oz) of Diced Tomatoes
10 medium sized carrots, shredded or sliced
4 Large Zucchini, shredded or cubed
2 EACH Red, Yellow, Orange Bell Peppers
1 Super large onion diced
1 16 oz bag of frozen Spinach
2 red chili peppers
4 heads of Roasted Garlic and chopped
64 oz of Vegetable Broth
4 Tbsp Itlaian Seasoning (more or less to taste)
2 Tbsp Ground red pepper (more or less to taste)
3 Tbsp Xylitol Brown Sugar Substitute
1 Tbsp Sea Salt
Bring vegetable broth and all chopped veggies to a boil. Boil for about 5-10 minutes, then add tomatoes. Simmer for a few hours and have divine sauce.
*My Man Version (My guys love mushrooms and green peppers and LOTS of onions, us girls? Not so much. This is an easy way to alter SOME of the sauce):
8 oz. mushrooms, sliced/chopped
2 green peppers
1 small onion
Sautee in separate pan, add some of the other 'complete' sauce to this to make your alternate version.
If your kids don't like all the chunks in their sauce, you can puree this in a blender. All but one of my kids loves all the chunks, so we just use a mini blender to smooth out the sauce for my yougnest before putting it over her pasta/quinoa/whatever!
I am going to use this for eggplant parmesan, wrapped stuff chicken breasts, pasta as well as a dipping sauce for bread, apparently... and whatever else I can find. It was definitely a big hit.
The Verdict: Wow. This actually got probably the BEST reaction. Ever. I can't imagine a better reaction. It was such a good reaction, it would be inappropriate to even post it on a public blog. My hubby is really really glad that I wasn't video taping him. Seriously. He had tears running down his face. I'm not joking. He was SO seriously happy. He ate this whole big bowl of sauce with his broiled/toasted bread topped with Mozzarella (I just discovered in my last post that I've always spelled Mozzarella wrong! Oops!:)
Seal in freezer bags when cool and freeze for later use!
I am going to use this for eggplant parmesan, wrapped stuff chicken breasts, pasta as well as a dipping sauce for bread, apparently... and whatever else I can find. It was definitely a big hit.