Skip to main content

Homemade Spaghetti Sauce


Tonight I made some homemade spaghetti sauce that turned out great!  I usually make spaghetti sauce this time of year with all our tomatoes and now I'm starting to wonder if different varieties of tomatoes make for more sweet sauce and less acidic sauce because this year my sauce was super sweet! Sometimes I make homemade sauce and I have to add sugar to tame the acid from the tomatoes but this time not at all and the sauce was so sweet.  We gobbled it down!  We used Big Beef tomatoes and Early Girl which are two common varieties. Then I wondered if simmering the sauce all day will turn out more sweet sauce because that's what I did.  It started getting a little too thick so I added 8 ounces of chicken broth to thin out the sauce.  I'm not sure what the trick was this year but this was the best spaghetti sauce I've made so I'm keeping this recipe. 

Serves 4

3-4 pounds of Big Beef and Early Girl tomatoes picked right off the vine
2 Tbsp. olive oil
8 cloves of garlic, minced
2 Tbsp. basil
1 Tbsp. oregano
2 or so bay leaves
8 ounces of chicken broth.  I use these:

I like the little 8 ounce boxes they come in which seem to be the perfect size for all the things I need a little broth for. 

1 pound of Mulays Mild Italian Sausage

I've been using this mild Italian sausage for my spaghetti sauce and lasagna lately because it adds the perfect flavor to it.   In combination with the super sweet tomatoes, it's truly irresistible!

Before making the sauce, you'll need to remove the skins from the tomatoes. Boil a pot of water and have a bowl of ice water nearby.  Slice a shallow X into the bottom of each tomato. Boil 3-4 tomatoes in the pot of water until you see the X begin to split open, or about 25 seconds.  Remove with a slotted spoon and immediately place tomatoes into the bowl of ice water for a few more seconds.  Remove the tomatoes from the ice water and peel the skin at the X, removing the skins easily.

1.  Drizzle 2 Tbsp. or so of olive oil into a pot and heat.

2.  Add minced garlic and saute garlic in olive oil until light brown and fragrant.

3.  Add tomatoes and heat until simmering.  Stir with a large spoon and smash tomatoes against the sides of the pot until tomatoes are chopped up into pieces.  Continue simmering.


4.  Add basil, oregano and bay leaves.

5.  Continue simmering the rest of the day for several hours.  If the liquid appears to evaporate, add a little broth for added liquid.

6.  In another pan, saute the Italian sausage stirring constantly until the meat crumbles into small pieces.  Drain off the grease.

7.  Add the tomato sauce mixture to the meat.

8.  Cook spaghetti in a pan of boiling water. Drain and serve with spaghetti sauce spooned on top with a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese.


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Meatloaf by Mark Bittman

Once again, I turned on the television yesterday and saw that Mark Bittman was on the Today show and was making his version of  meatloaf .  This must be meatloaf season.  It was surprisingly similar to the  Pioneer Woman's version  who was also recently on.   I was a little surprised of his version because Mark Bittman is into healthy eating and has lost a lot of weight and improved his health by changing his diet which he writes about in his book,  Food Matters .  His meatloaf recipe also included bacon and cheese!  I must be doing something wrong.  The thing to remember, which he writes about in his book, is that you can eat healthy without going extreme or changing your whole life.    If you don't know who Mark Bittman is, he is a food writer and a four star chef with multiple cookbooks who loves to eat but changed his food philosophy to improve his health.  He tells his story in Food Matters and provides ...
4 comments
Read more

Trader Joe's Gluten-Free Oatmeal, Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chip Cookies

I don't have very many gluten-free cookies on my blog because quite frankly, I usually don't like gluten-free.  But occasionally, I do find a good recipe and this is one that is from the back of the Trader Joe's oatmeal and it's a good one.  My friend brought some over to our house last weekend when Nick and family were here for our birthday celebrations  and we all loved them. My friend lives a few blocks away and we walk the neighborhood together on weekends.  We can easily go 5 miles in no time, talking non-stop.  She loves exploring our neighborhood as much as I do and we discover so many favorite little spots.  We even found a property with a horse (or more like a pony, I should say.)   The views are always quite lovely, too.  Bruce and I had our thirty-ninth wedding anniversary on July 18th and I made a point of walking past the house where we had our wedding reception.  I told my friend, "Thirty-nine years ago today, t...
2 comments
Read more

Waking Up in Vegas

and just like that...we were Waking Up in Vegas.   Just like the Katy Perry song. We went to her 78th performance which was her second-to-last Las Vegas residency show entitled "Play".  That was perfect for us because we went to Vegas simply to play.  Her concert was a great finale for us because it was high energy and full of silliness, just the way Katy Perry is.  And we were feeling it after three nights in Las Vegas. "Get up, and shake the gutter off your clothes now, That's what you get for waking up in Vegas".    Here's what she said about her show: "I created this show after the birth of my daughter, Daisy Dove. When I met her, it was like all the love I was ever searching for finally showed up. This show is for everyone’s inner child and for the hope that maybe if we could all see life through the eyes of a child, we would be free. Because never forget, love is and will always be the key,” she said. We went to Vegas spur of the moment because Br...
Post a Comment
Read more