WHAT’S COOKIN’ BY TRACY CARPENTER
Fresh Summer Tomatoes
Make This Sauce Amazing
One of the greatest joys of summer is fresh
tomatoes. I know that’s a hard sentence for Kelly
to read because she’s not a fan of tomatoes. Stick
with me, my friend. What I have in store, even
those that hate tomatoes will be asking for seconds.
Homegrown tomatoes taste so much better than
anything you can buy in the grocery stores. They're
heartier and juicier and have a much better texture as
well. With this pandemic keeping many of us close
to home this summer, I have been lucky enough
to have a couple of friends with an abundance of
tomatoes in their garden. They have been more
than generous and have shared them with me by
the bucket full. I was looking for new ways to enjoy
my bounty. Then it came to me. Why not use
these beauties in my homemade spaghetti sauce.
Spaghetti is one of the ultimate comfort foods
to me. I know that normally I write a comfort food
Italian Sausage
Spaghetti Sauce
2 lbs Johnson’s ground sweet Italian sausage
(found in the freezer section at WM Grocery) or
1 lb. Sweet sausage and 1 lb. Ground beef or chuck
1 small onion, chopped
4 garlic cloves minced
1 (28 ounce) can diced tomatoes
1 (6 ounce) can basil, garlic and oregano tomato paste
2 (15 ounce) cans tomato sauce
4 teaspoons fresh chopped basil
2 teaspoons dried parsley
1/2 teaspoons brown sugar
2 teaspoons Mrs. Wages Pasta Sauce Seasoning or
your favorite spaghetti seasoning pack
1 teaspoon dried oregano
In a large, heavy stockpot, brown sausage, breaking up as you stir.
Add onions and continue to cook, stirring
occasionally until onions are softened.
Drain
Add garlic, tomatoes, tomato paste, tomato sauce. I add about a 1/4
cup of water to each tomato sauce can and swirl it around to clean
the sauce off the sides of the can, then I pour it into the sauce.
Add basil, parsley, brown sugar, oregano and
Mrs. Wage’s Pasta Sauce seasoning.
Stir well and barely bring to a boil.
Simmer on low, stirring frequently for at least an hour. A longer simmer
makes for a better sauce, just be careful not to let it burn! The more
water you add, the more diluted the flavor will be. Keep test tasting
the sauce and add any additional seasonings to suit your taste.
Freeze in Ziplock bags or use a vacuum seal food sealer. Thaw when ready
to use and serve over your favorite noodles. We like angel hair noodles.
Notes: To incorporate the fresh tomatoes I left the canned tomato sauce
out and diced three large tomatoes and put them in the NutriBullet along
with whole garlic cloves and fresh basil leaves. A food processor will work
too. I diced a few more tomatoes (large dices) and added them to the
sauce as it was simmering. I had to add more seasoning since I added
this directly to the sauce without cooking it first. I didn’t measure how
much I added. I just kept adding until I thought it was perfect. Keep in
mind that the longer this cooks the more intense the flavors will get, so
don’t over do the spices. Normally you cook your tomatoes into a sauce
before you add it to the meat. Slow cooking them helps to bring out the
sugars that are naturally present in the tomatoes giving a sweetness and
intensity to the sauce. I opted to skip that step and it turned out just fine.
38 LAKE WEDOWEE LIFE