Years ago, my wonderful mother-in-law, who had kept a large garden, made and canned the best tomato sauce I had ever tasted. She had done that for a couple of years, and we would get our tomato sauce "supply" every fall. It was awesome. Unfortunately, she had gotten sick, and stopped making it. Time had passed, and I had forgotten just how much better tasting tomato sauce from fresh tomatoes is, compared with commercially-bought ones.
Until last night. Our tomato plants had been going crazy over the last few weeks, and I decided to use the tomatoes for... something... before they go bad. So I harvested them and decided (because there were so many) to make my ultimate comfort food: spaghetti and meat sauce.
Because of this "healthier lifestyle" that we're attempting to get into, I contemplated cutting the beef with some ground turkey. I actually had my hand on the ground turkey in the store, when I saw how expensive it is, and thought, "I'm spending this money to get a dish that is not as tasty?!" So I put it down and walked away. I was thinking that filling a tasty comfort food with a less tasty meat just to ingest the same volume is simply going to provide less pleasure. So I decided to make it with only ground beef, but with less beef than normal. That way, we get the full beef flavor, and fully enjoy the dish.
This is what we had:
It was absolutely awesome. Well worth it, even if it is not as meaty as we normally make it.
And now the secret to making it tasty: cooking from scratch. If you have not done it before, and feel motivated to try it, here's how we did it:
TOMATO SAUCE FROM SCRATCH (using a slow cooker)
I did my usual search for a recipe online, but I just used what I read as a guideline. I had a lot of smallish tomatoes, and decided to risk not blanching them first, nor de-seeding. I can't tell you the exact quantities of what I used, but I hope this photo can give you an idea on the ratios:
I used a combination of Roma tomatoes and Stupice type Heirloom tomatoes, garlic from Gilroy (of course), and sweet onion from my husband's colleague's garden.
I cut up the tomatoes into rough chunks (see picture below). In a pan, I sweated the onions in olive oil, sprinkled some salt, then followed that with the garlic then a sprinkling of crushed red pepper flakes. Once aromatic, I added the chunks of tomatoes and heated that until some of the juices were visible in the pan.
Then I scraped all of this onto my slow cooker pot, stirred in 5-6 fresh basil leaves from our garden, a pinch of brown sugar, and put it on high for about 2 hours. Then sprinkled in a generous amount of dried oregano, stirred, and let that sit for another hour and a half. I'm sure you can do this on the stovetop; I just like being able to turn the slow cooker on and forget about it. Stir occasionally, and ensure it's not too dry, or it'll burn. Then put it all in a blender until the right consistency.
You can then use this as a sauce. If you taste it, it is a lot creamier and sweeter than commercially bought tomato sauce, without having to add any dairy product. Use as you would for meat sauce.
If you want guidance for that, this is how we made ours:
MEAT SAUCE
Sautee in olive oil, about 4-5 cloves of garlic, minced (we like our garlic). Once aromatic (ensure it doesn't burn!), add the ground beef (we used 88:12 protein to fat ratio; from Costco) and some salt and pepper, and let brown. At one point, oil will begin accumulating on the bottom - I scooped out a lot of this to remove some excess fat. Must leave some though, to allow the beef to cook well. Then add the tomato sauce, a pinch of white sugar (the seeds in the tomatoes contribute a slight bitterness, so I added the sugar to sort of counterbalance that), a bay leaf. Let simmer. Season to taste (I just added a pinch of salt - the sauce was awesome already). Scoop on to pasta, and add grated Asiago cheese on top (the saltiness of the Asiago is perfect with this sauce). Broil until cheese is melted. Enjoy!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment