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.
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.
Kid Friendly Tip:
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.