Spaghetti Sauce!

How to turn this...                   Into this!

My family loves them some spaghetti! Pretty much in every form with every meat option and on any pasta!  Because of that-making spaghetti sauce is a must for our pantry!  I am able to get wonderful locally grown tomatoes from our local farmers market through a program called CSA that I'll talk about in my next post.  At the end of the summer every year the canning is on! But... if you're not big into canning guess what?!? Sauce can be made per meal or made in bulk and frozen!  If you don't have fresh tomatoes laying around but you still want homemade sauce some canned stewed tomatoes work great!

First step...take those gorgeous tomatoes and stick them in a pot of boiling water.  This is a trick to peel the tomatoes easily and it will also get them semi cooked for your sauce. 

When the skin is cracked you know they're done.

Take them from the boiling water and put them directly into an ice bath.

Peel the skins and squeeze the water/juice out so you're left with the tomato meat.  If you like to drink tomato juice you can squeeze your tomatoes over a strainer in a bowl to save it and later run that through some cheesecloth for fresh homemade tomato juice-also great for a soup base so I hear!

Once you have your tomato meat you're ready to make your sauce.  This recipe is for 4 cups of tomato meat.  Multiply accordingly.

In food processor or blender combine:

4 cup stewed tomatoes
1 6oz can tomato paste
1/4 onion
1 clove garlic
1/4 t salt
1/8 fresh ground pepper
1t basil
1t oregano
1t thyme

1T brown sugar


The secret to the perfect sauce...the brown sugar!  The acid in the tomatoes leaves a bitter taste and the brown sugar counteracts the acid to take away that bitterness.


Yum Yum!  

Be creative and Enjoy!

Ideas-add some carrots, zucchini, or other veggies into the food processor to bulk up your sauce and hide the health from small or male mouths.

STATS:

Better?-Yes!  Your homemade sauce will actually taste like tomatoes!  Ragu has nothing on you! *check*

Healthier?- For sure!  Most pasta sauces are actually loaded with sugar!  Yuck! *check*

Cheaper?-Yes!  You can always find great deals on tomatoes or...grow some if you're capable-which my last 2 years of gardens have determined...I'm not :) *check*